Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) punched back Wednesday at Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) after the Kentucky senator and 2016 candidate blamed Republican foreign policy hawks for the existence of the Islamic State.
“This is a perfect example of why Senator Paul is unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief,” Jindal wrote in a statement. “We have men and women in the military who are in the field trying to fight ISIS right now, and Senator Paul is taking the weakest, most liberal Democrat position.”
During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday morning Paul said, “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most [of] these arms were snatched up by ISIS.”
In his response, Jindal, who has created a presidential exploratory committee, went on to link Paul’s comments to President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“It’s one thing for Senator Paul to take an outlandish position as a Senator at Washington cocktail parties, but being Commander-in-Chief is an entirely different job,” Jindal’s statement continued. “We should all be clear that evil and Radical Islam are at fault for the rise of ISIS, and people like President Obama and Hillary Clinton exacerbate it.”