Kentucky Senator Rand Paul threw shade at his South Carolinian colleague Lindsey Graham while excoriating Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” on Fox Business.
In an appearance Wednesday night, Paul argued that Graham had his own reasons for rubber-stamping Republicans’ gargantuan budget bill, which will add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. The bill is expected to cut $1.3 trillion in spending but also cut $3.7 trillion in total revenue, leading to the massive deficit.
“This bill is really a vehicle for Lindsey Graham to secretly explode beyond on the military budget,” Paul said. “They want to explode the military budget beyond the caps. That’s really what the bill is about. So there is a lot of new spending in this bill. If the new spending weren’t in there, it truly would be a bill that would be saving money.”
The legislation would dramatically increase military and border spending, bringing $150 billion to the Pentagon over the next 10 years. Graham, a longtime war hawk, has urged the Trump administration to take a tougher stance on Iran.
Paul also said he didn’t think Congress was mature enough to raise the debt ceiling.
“If you have teenage children and you gave them a credit card and they maxed out $2,000 on booze and gambling, would you give them a bigger credit line or a smaller credit line?” the Kentucky Republican said. “Congress is worse than a bunch of drunken teenagers. They have a history of not being fiscally responsible. You should give them a very short debt ceiling increase and say, ‘Show me and prove to me you’ll act responsibly, and I’ll give you more money.’”
Paul told CNN Wednesday that he could understand Elon Musk’s frustration with the gargantuan spending bill. “The new spending in this bill actually exceeds all the work he did to try to find savings, so I can understand his disappointment,” he said. Earlier that day, Paul had quote-tweeted Musk, arguing that Congress knows adding another $5 trillion to the national debt would be a “huge mistake.”