Rand: Trump’s Surge Is Fueled By Media and ‘Temporary, Sort of, Loss of Sanity’

Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul argued that the rise of fellow candidate Donald Trump is due to extensive media coverage of Trump and “a temporary, sort of, lost of sanity” on Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Wolf.”

Rand said of Trump’s rise in the polls, “Television works, Wolf. If you would give some other candidates time from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night, all day long, every day for three weeks, I’m guessing some other candidates might rise as well. So, for example, while some people are hearing about one candidate all the time, very few people know that I’ve offered a tax code that you can fill out your tax return on one page [at] 14.5%. So, if I had a billion dollars worth of advertising, and every network going gaga over that, you know what, I think we could get ours to rise also. But there’s going to be time for that. I think this is a temporary, sort of, loss of sanity, but we’re going to come back to our senses and look for somebody serious to lead the country at some point.”

Rand clarified that the didn’t think Trump’s supporters had suffered a “lost of sanity,” stating, “I think what they are is they’re hungry for someone who will tell the truth, who will say Washington is broken, and that we really have to start over, have term limits, wash out the place, cleanse the place up here. Absolutely, he’s tapping into that vein. But the thing is is we also have to have a serious discussion of how we’re going to do it, and I think simply saying the Mexicans are going to pay for it, we’re not going to fix the national debt by asking the Mexicans to pay for it, okay? But there are serious proposals. I’m the only one running for office that actually has a five-year plan to balance the budget. I’ve gone through all the numbers, and I’m willing to make the cuts, the specific cuts in order to do it. And so, those are the kind of debates we have to have. I’ve got a simple tax rate, one rate, 14.5%, I think would ignite the economy, create millions of jobs. So, I think that’s a debate we’re going to have. I think we’ll start it next week, hopefully.”

(h/t The Hill)

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