House Republican Blasts Rand Paul For Trying To Curb Trump’s Tariffs: ‘I’m Here To Fight Democrats, Not Work With’ Them!
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) attempts to curb President Donald Trump’s tariff power, declaring he is in Congress to “fight Democrats.”
Fine, who took National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s seat in a special election, joined CNN anchor Boris Sanchez on Wednesday and discussed Paul’s new legislation which is aimed at stopping Trump’s widespread tariffs. The legislation co-sponsored by Paul would terminate the national emergency Trump declared to push forward his tariffs.
The Libertarian-leaning Paul has been one of the more vocal opponents to tariffs on the right, calling them a tax that requires congressional approval.
“The whole debate is so fundamentally backwards and upside down,” Paul told CNBC about tariffs. “It’s based on a fallacy and the fallacy is this: that somehow in a trade someone must lose. That somehow when you trade with someone there’s a loser and someone’s taking advantage of you.”
Trump has meanwhile insisted his tariffs will lead to more beneficial trade deals and a manufacturing boom in the United States as markets have taken sharp hits amid uncertainty about those potential trade deals.
A vote on Paul’s bill is expected Wednesday. Paul said he expects to have enough votes to pass the bill through the Senate. The senator needs four Republicans to join him along with Democrats. So far, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are supporting the effort.
Fine told Sanchez that there “absolutely” should not even be debate about the tariff legislation in the House where he predicted it will “go nowhere.”
Sanchez noted that tariffs being used as broadly as Trump is using them would historically typically require some sort of congressional oversight. Fine argued Trump is doing things the “new way” and suggested Paul has his priorities backwards.
“[Trump’s] doing things the new way. If Rand Paul wants to get together with Bernie Sanders to fight Donald Trump, well, that’s on him. I know that I’m here to fight Democrats, not to work with Democrats to undermine what President Trump is trying to do,” Fine said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has in the past been a fan of tariffs as an economic trade policy. He argued Trump’s are not targeted enough and too “across the board.”
Fine made it clear he is “100%” behind the president.
“The fact of the matter is trade policy throughout the world has been unfair for decades,” he said. “And I appreciate president trump for standing up and fighting back. We’ve been waiting for this for decades. We finally have a president who will go and get the job done.”
Watch above via CNN.
