Rand Paul and Marco Rubio Battle It Out Over Whether Trump Committed an ‘Act of War’: ‘It’s a Ruse!’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday on whether President Donald Trump’s recent actions justify a foreign country indicting him and then entering the United States to capture him.

Paul argued during a congressional hearing that Trump capturing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife would be considered an “act of war” if the United States was not behind it. Maduro was originally indicted in the United States in 2020 on narco-terrorism charges. He is now facing trial in New York.

“If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president, and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?” Paul asked Rubio.

The senator acknowledged Maduro could be guilty of the crimes he’s charged with and that his election victory has been likely rightfully challenged by other countries, including the U.S., but argued he was indicted under foreign laws, making his capture more than a law enforcement action.

“I will acknowledge you’ve been very consistent on all these points the entire career, no matter who’s in charge. So I will point to two things. The first is it’s hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about four and a half hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don’t recognize as a head of state indicted in the United States,” Rubio said.

Rubio noted Maduro had been indicted before his capture and that his election victory was not recognized as legitimate by the United States.

Paul pressed further on whether it would be an “act of war” for a foreign country to capture Trump after he’s been indicted under their laws.

“I’m probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president,” Paul said.

“Look, I think ultimately we’re always gonna act in our national interest,” Rubio declared, adding that the “equivalency” Paul was making does not actually exist in reality.

Paul chalked up the administration’s justification for Maduro’s capture to “empty” arguments that fall apart under even light scrutiny.

He said:

What I’m saying though is that our arguments are empty then. The drug bust isn’t really an argument. It’s a ruse. The war argument, not a war, is a war, is a rouse. It’s not a real argument. And we do what we do because we are — we have the force. We have the might. We do it because it’s in our interest. So we wouldn’t let anybody come in, bomb us, blockade us, and take our president. We’ve had arguments about legitimate, illegitimate presidents, bad elections, rigged elections, so there’s all kinds of same arguments that we’ve had in our country that they’ve had in Venezuela.

Watch above via CNN.

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