Rand Paul Hits Back at Laura Ingraham Over Hemp Dig: ‘Careful With the Misrepresentation’
Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) hit back at Fox News host Laura Ingraham this week amid a flurry of headlines reporting that he could slow down the government’s reopening due to a fight over hemp.
Ingraham shared a headline from Politico on Monday night that read, “Rand Paul wants hemp vote to speed up shutdown endgame.” She captioned the story with her own words, adding, “Rand Paul wants to hold things up in the Senate so more Americans can get buzzed on hemp-products.”
Ingraham’s apparent dig at Paul, who has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump on foreign policy and a few other issues, led to a response from the Kentucky Senator.
“Hi Laura, careful with the misrepresentation, here,” Paul replied, adding:
A. I’m not holding anything up. The timing is already fixed under Senate procedure.
B. Hemp is an agricultural crop used for textiles, rope, insulation, composite wood, paper, grain, and CBD products that veterans, seniors, and people with chronic pain rely on every day. You don’t “get high” from hemp — you’d get a headache long before anything else.
C. The issue at hand is a last-minute federal ban slipped into the funding bill that would recriminalize legal hemp crops and shut down farms across the country. If there are bad actors selling high-potency products in gas stations, then the solution is regulation, not destroying a $28 billion industry and the rural communities who depend on it. I am not “expanding marijuana” — I am preventing Washington from collapsing an entire legal American agricultural sector because some people don’t understand the difference.
Politico reported that Paul had agreed to quickly move the funding bill to reopen the government through the Senate. “Paul also told reporters Monday that he’d agree to speed up the process of advancing the bill to reopen the government once leadership agrees to bring his amendment to the floor, giving him an opportunity to speak out against McConnell’s move,” noted Politico, referring to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) attempt to crack down on hemp production.
“I’m not looking to hold things up,” Paul told Politico in the article Ingraham shared. “My goal is to condense the time, have one vote, express my displeasure with them screwing up an entire industry and people will feel … there’s at least been somebody fighting.”
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