Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday night backed away from a comment he made last week that “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Paul why he blamed the rise of the Islamic State on members of the Republican party.
“I think ultimately I could have maybe stated it a little bit better,” Paul responded. “What I would say is that the ultimate people who are responsible for terrorism are obviously the terrorists. So ISIS is responsible for the mayhem, the murders, the brutality, the beheadings, that’s ISIS.”
Paul said that said the rise of ISIL was one of the “unintended consequences” of arming Syrian rebels.
“This was the policy of President Obama, it was the policy of Hillary Clinton and it was also the policy of some in my party who wanted to arm the Islamic rebels. And I warned at the time that the great irony is that you arm these people — one day we’ll have to go back and fight against these weapons ourselves,” he said.
After Paul made the initial comments last week blaming his own party for the existence of the Islamic State, potential Republican presidential candidates hit back.
“This is a perfect example of why Senator Paul is unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) 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.”
Watch Hannity’s interview with Paul below via Fox News. They begin discussing ISIL at the 6 minute mark.
H/t Huffington Post
