He’s ba-a-ck. After shunning the national media spotlight for a couple weeks, Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul made his triumphant return to national TV yesterday. And right away, he was back to talking about the 1964 Civil Rights Act (he says would have voted for it but claims he was “vilified” by the liberal press for having the “audacity” to bring up his issues with the law) and BP (“sometimes people are well-intentioned and bad things happen”).
There were some differences, however. Paul’s last national media tour — which came right after his overwhelming victory in the May 18 primary — took him to NPR, the Rachel Maddow Show and (almost) Meet The Press. This time, Paul chose friendlier and lower-rated turf, spending about 10 minutes with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on his Fox Business Channel show.
Check out the video, and our annotated guide to the good parts, below.
Key moments on Civil Rights:
1:46 Paul says the firestorm over his public concerns about the Civil Rights Act’s requirements that private businesses must accommodate all comers was “a concerted effort by people who want to damage the tea party — people who want to make the tea party something it’s not.”
2:01 Paul blasts the left for being uncivil. “I take great pride in presenting myself as someone who is thoughtful, someone who is respectful and I see more of an intolerance on the left in the sense that they won’t discuss the ideas in a sane way, other than to call me names and call me hateful things that really doesn’t further the discussions of any of these problems in our country.”
3:04 In response to a question from Cavuto about whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has told him to “stay low,” Paul says that state Republicans have gotten behind him while also recognizing that “we won this basically on our own.”
4:02 Cavuto asks if Paul would have voted for the ’64 Civil Rights Bill if he had been in Congress at the time. “I would vote for the Civil Rights Act,” Paul says.
4:35 Paul explains that he’s been victimized for having the fortitude to raise issues with the Civil Rights Act others are afraid to discuss. “I think the Civil Rights Act was necessary to right a great wrong,” he says, “and yet I’m vilified for having any kind of audacity to at least discuss any of it. I think that’s really–it gets away from having any kind of, you know, any kind of real discussion on television. You know the most common answer I’ve been told to give when I’m on national TV now is, ‘don’t answer the question, keep repeating some answer you want to give.'”
On BP:
7:59 Paul responds to the flap over his past comments about the Obama administration’s handling of the BP spill — he called government criticisms of the company “un-American” — by worrying that the White House is alienating the oil giant. “All I was saying is that the tone of a presidential administration should not be using words like that to talk about a business. I don’t think it’s constructive. I don’t think it’s constructive now to talk about vilifying BP when we should want BP to clean up the mess. If you vilify them and put them in jail, there will be no one left to clean up the mess.”
8:43 Paul goes one step further, claiming that the administration is attacking BP for what is essentially an unproven accusation of wrongdoing. “I saw the full-page ad in the newspaper and they’ve [BP] promised to pay for the clean up,” he says. “Do we have to have a villain? That’s my whole point — do we want a presidential administration that says outlandish things like we’re going to put our boot heel on BP? I want BP to pay, everybody wants them to pay for cleaning up the oil mess.”
“The thing is, that sometimes people are well-intentioned and bad things happen,” Paul continues. “I don’t know if there was negligence or fault here, but it should be investigated and if there is someone should be punished for it. But we shouldn’t automatically assume that there is.”
9:30 Showing a bit of that trademark libertarian streak, Paul calls out Congress for passing liability limits on companies like BP. “The interesting thing is a lot of these people beating their chests and criticizing me are the same people who voted to limit the liability of BP,” he says. “Congress limited their liability and that was a mistake.”
Additional reporting by Jillian Rayfield.
