The senator from Kentucky made the comments during a House session on Thursday. Taking to the floor to oppose a resolution from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, which would have demanded Trump sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the investigation, Paul lambasted “partisan” critics of the president, accusing them of preferring to risk war with Russia instead of giving diplomacy and peace a chance.
Sen. @RandPaul: "Trump derangement syndrome has officially come to the Senate. The hatred for the President is so intense that partisans would rather risk war than give diplomacy a chance."
Full video here: t.co/Jk5rOpnh1i pic.twitter.com/pM4PK9RPvf
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 19, 2018
“The hatred of the president is so intense that partisans would rather risk war than give diplomacy a chance,” he said.
“I would rather than we still have open channels of discussion with the Russians,” Paul added.
Paul maintained that leaders in Moscow and Washington had always engaged in diplomacy even when they seemed to be on the brink of conflict during the Cold War.
“Does anybody remember that Ronald Reagan sat down with Gorbachev and we lessened the nuclear tensions?” he queried.
He continued: “Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War, had a direct line to Khrushchev, and it may have prevented the end of the world. Should we be so crazy about partisanship that we now say we don’t want to talk to the Russians? Are we not going to have relations with the Russians?”
Paul said that through diplomacy with Russia, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine could come to an end and expressed an eagerness to have Russian help in bringing about denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, but maintained that heaping sanctions while not engaging in diplomacy would not allow that to happen.
“We’re not going to have it if we simply heap more sanctions on and say we’re not going to talk to the Russians and anybody who talks to the Russian has committed treason,” Rand Paul said.
“This has got to stop. This crazy hated of the president. This is crazy partisanship that is driving this. For goodness sakes, we don’t excuse Russia’s behavior in our election, but we don’t have to have war.”