In Their Own Words

Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene (briefly) find their inner Contrarians

It’s always notable when the opposition starts making your points for you, but never more so than in the middle of a government shutdown with democracy at stake.

As President Donald Trump’s military ambitions metastasize and a guillotine hangs over affordable healthcare, even some longtime loyalists are finding red lines and suddenly sounding a little less MAGA, a little more…contrarian.

Here is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in an interview this week with Bloomberg TV:

Bloomberg: I want to ask you about what’s going on in the Caribbean, Senator Rand Paul, and specifically when it comes to Venezuela. You’ve been outspoken about this, you commented around fears of extrajudicial killings following the first vote, we’ve now had four, your concern about the president’s actions here. Is he looking for regime change in Venezuela?

Rand Paul: You know, I don’t know. But we did discover today the Coast Guard, when they interdict boats, it’s a common thing off the coast of Miami. In California, about 25% of the time, the boat that they board doesn’t have drugs on it. So they have made an error, but they don’t kill them. But we’ve blown up four boats now. And if the percentages hold true, did one of those four boats not have drug dealers on it?... You know, the first 11 they killed, what were their names? What was the evidence linking them to being part of a gang? So I think there’s a lot of unknowns here. And I don’t think you can have a universal Coast Guard policy of just blowing up boats before they’re interdicted.

There’s [a] decades-long history of how we board boats. We say, halt, stop, we will board your boat. If they don’t halt and stop, there’s an escalation of use of force, but we don’t just blow ships up. So there is a real problem. And yes, I think it might lead to regime change. And some of the more skeptical among us think that maybe this is a provocation to lead to a real regime change, a provocation to get the Venezuelans to react so we can then insert the military. I hope that’s not true.

Bloomberg: Well, I know I know you’re very familiar with these rules as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. And there’s been a question more recently about whether there’s a congressional answer to this. Would you support a War Powers Act with eyes on Venezuela?

RP: Yes, I will co-sponsor the War Powers Act later this week, and we will be discussing this on the floor. I think it’s one of the most important debates we have. And the idea that you can kill someone who you don’t know their name and has had no process at all, people say, oh, you’re going to give due process to fentanyl killers and all of this. Even in our country, 20,000 people commit murders. And as angry as we are… we still have trials….We can’t have a policy where we just blow up ships where we don’t even know the people’s names. It can’t be the policy for drug interdiction, either in the country or outside the country. So I will support a war resolution to say the government shouldn’t be doing this.

Bloomberg: That’s news, senator, and really interesting that you’re going to put your name on this. Do you have other Republicans who will support that legislation?

RP: There will be people quietly who will say it’s the right thing to do and will respect me for doing the right thing. I think most will be afraid of the response from the White House.

This is still Rand Paul we’re talking about. In the same interview he opined that Republicans’ proposed budget cuts don’t go far enough, and, when asked directly whether he thinks Trump is an autocrat, said that “he’s the best president of our lifetime.” But amid all the cognitive dissonance and libertarian fanaticism, his recognition that “we don’t just blow ships up” is significant.

Then there’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who went on CNN’s The Situation Room to reveal that she’s been listening to the citizens of her district and she’s less than impressed with her party’s leadership:

Pamela Browne: So you voted for the short term funding bill, but now you’re talking about this healthcare issue. Help us better understand why now.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: …I’ve known about [rising healthcare costs] as a major problem for a long time. It’s not just ACA recipients whose premiums are going to skyrocket very soon. It has been a disaster for many Americans across the board, and cost of living is so high now. Many of my constituents, many of my friends, and even my own children are finding health insurance to be extremely unaffordable and something that they are having to go without. So I think this is an incredibly important issue. I think it is a crisis. I don’t think it’s something to wear political party team jerseys on. I think it’s something that we have to address and fix.…

This is such a crisis that I’m willing to say, okay, everyone, we have to do something about this. It shouldn’t be something that we dangle the American people or military pay or all of these things. We shouldn’t be dangling them back and forth. We have to fix it….

We track all the calls that come into my office. About 60% of the calls coming in right now are calls of support and saying, yes, health insurance is a crisis. They’re telling us stories about how they’re already paying $2,000 a month with $10,000 deductibles. I’m getting phone calls from people that are saying if the ACA tax credits expire, they aren’t going to be able to have health insurance. They’re going to have to drop it. But I’m hearing from people on both sides, people already on the ACA and people that are already getting crushed by high health insurance premiums.

PB: I want to ask you about this new Washington Post poll. It shows that 47% of Americans believe that President Trump and the Republicans are mainly responsible for the shutdown…. Do you agree with Americans in that poll that see the shutdown is your party’s fault?

MTG: You know what? I don’t think the shutdown is popular for either side. And so I see the shutdown completely different from maybe my party leadership. And I’m not putting the blame on the president. I’m actually putting the blame on the speaker and leader Thune in the Senate.

This should not be happening…. Look, as a member of Congress, we already have a low enough job approval rating. The shutdown is just going to drive everybody’s approval rating that much lower.

PB: But so you’re putting the blame on the leadership of your party?

MTG: Absolutely. We control the House. We control the Senate. We have the White House…. What we have to do is we have to work for the American people. And our country is so divided right now. We see it all the time and every single way it’s divided. And what I would say very dangerous ways. And we saw that with the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, which has upset so many people across the board.

Look, when it comes to hearing from senior citizens or my own friends and neighbors and my own family members and people that voted for me, they’re just saying, Marjorie, we just really want somebody to do something about health insurance premiums. We really want our government and our leaders to actually focus on our country for a change and fix our problems. That is the message I constantly hear from my district. And I’m a representative. I don’t have to be a cheerleader for my party. I have to represent my district because those are the people that hired me and sent me here. And, I, myself, I agree with them.…

PB: Are you concerned about the cost of living that President Trump said he would lower?

MTG: Very. The inflation crushed people in the past four and a half years, and the costs have not come down. I myself can tell you my apartment here in Washington, D.C., the electricity bill is $100 more than it was last year.… Prices have not come down. That, that is a reality. People’s wages have not gone up. That’s another reality. And so Americans are continuing to have a very difficult time getting by.

And I’ll go a step further. I’m a mom. And so when it comes to what is affecting my adult children’s lives, who are 22, 26, and 28, I’m going to be 1,000% fighting for them over any politician and any party. And I can tell you right now that generation, they are barely making it, and they’re very hopeless for their future.

WB: So you’re a mom first, a politician second.

MTG: That’s right. I’m a mom first.

Taylor Greene went on to call for the release of the Epstein files, to scold Congress for delaying swearing in a Democratic congresswomen and passing appropriations bills, and to decry the “relentless bombing of Gaza,” which she calls a genocide and a humanitarian crisis.

Do we think this MAGA-beloved Q-anon veteran will be changing party allegiances any time soon? No. But it’s a positive development to see someone elected on a tidal wave of populism actually do some listening to the people.

Taken together, comments like hers and Paul’s don’t add up to meaningful intra-party resistance—they’re still falling over themselves to exclude Trump himself from blame, for one. But this is a glimmer of disunity, a break in the ranks to watch. Here’s hoping more Republicans start speaking truth in the face of their party’s abuses of power.

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