Rand Paul Feels People Were Too Hard On Him After Howard Speech

FILE - In this March 7, 2013 file photo, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Paul said Wednesday that Republicans face long odds in connecting with black voters and are often cast ... FILE - In this March 7, 2013 file photo, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Paul said Wednesday that Republicans face long odds in connecting with black voters and are often cast as unsympathetic to the needs of blacks and minorities _ something he says the party needs to change. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) MORE LESS
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Wednesday called the criticism he faced following an awkward speech at Howard University unfair.

Earlier this month, Paul asked the crowd at the historically black college if they knew that Republicans founded the NAACP. Audience members responded with a booming “Yes!”

But Paul said Wednesday at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that he thought the exchange was misreported. From the Huffington Post:

“That was misreported,” Paul said. “I asked them, ‘Do you know?’ and I didn’t know the answer. This is my first time to go to a historically black college.”

 

“People say, ‘Well, you should know the answer.’ Well, that was part of the reason for going there, was I didn’t know the answer,” he said. “I said, ‘Did they all know that the NAACP was founded by Republicans?’ And in retrospect it sounds like it is a dumb question, but it’s like, Republicans haven’t been going to Howard for 20 years, so maybe by me going there I did learn something. And I did learn that everybody there knows, and I left there knowing that: Everybody there knows.”

“It’s unfair what the media tries to do to me on this,” Paul added, according to the report. “I’m a little sensitive to some of it.”

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