Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) attributed Donald Trump’s place atop the polls to a combination of media saturation and a momentary loss of sanity in the country.
A new Quinnipiac poll today put Trump at 20 percent among GOP voters, with his greatest support among Tea Partiers and men. He also tops GOP voters’ “no way” list, followed by Chris Christie and Jeb Bush.
Among hypothetical matchups, polling all voters, Hillary Clinton beats Trump 48-36 percent, edges out Scott Walker 44-43 percent, and gets 41 percent support compared to 42 percent for Bush. It’s the first time Bush has passed her in the poll; at the end of May, voters favored Clinton by 10 points over Bush.
Paul was asked on CNN today why Trump is continuing to do so well.
“Television works, Wolf. If you would give some other candidates time from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night, all day long for three weeks, I’m guessing other candidates might rise as well,” the senator replied. “For example, some people are hearing about one candidate all the time. Very few people know that I’ve offered a tax code that you can fill out your tax return on one page at 14.5 percent. If I had every network going gaga over that, I think we could get ours to rise as well.”
“I think this is a temporary sort of loss of sanity, but we’re going to come back to our senses and look for somebody serious at some point,” he added.
Asked if Trump’s supporters had lost their sanity, Paul clarified, “No. I think what they are is hungry for someone who will tell the truth, who will say that Washington is broken and we really have to start over, have term limits, wash out the place, cleanse the place. Absolutely he’s tapping into that.”
“But we also have to have a serious discussion of how we’re going to do it and simply saying that the Mexicans are going to pay for it, we’re not going to pay the national debt by asking Americans to pay for it. OK? I’m the only one running for office that actually has a five-year plan to balance the budget. I’m ready to do the specific cuts to do it. I have a simple tax rate, one rate, 14.5 percent. I think that’s a debate we’re going to have to have. We’ll start it next week, hopefully.”
Paul launched a new anti-Planned Parenthood campaign ad today, noting that while they sell body parts Paul “cared for premature babies to save their sight.”
“We fund 9,000 community health centers and there’s only 600 to 700 Planned Parenthood centers. There are plenty of government centers that do everything Planned Parenthood says they do, but don’t do abortions. They manipulate the baby to harvest organs,” Paul said. “I know pro-choice people who are upset about this. Even Hillary Clinton, who is not sure when life begins, she’s even disturbed by this. You have to realize, this is really disturbing a lot of people from all spectrums of life.”
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