Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said he will vote against the Iran nuclear deal, but it’s “absurd” to tear it up immediately at Wednesday’s primetime debate on CNN.
Rand was asked about fellow candidate Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker arguing the White House should cancel the state dinner for Chinese president Xi Jinping. He answered, “I think this goes back to essentially what we’ve been saying for the last two or three questions. Carly Fiorina also said we’re not going to talk with Putin. Well, think if Reagan had said that during the Cold War. We continued to talk with the Russians throughout the Cold War, which is much more significant than where we are now. Should we continue to talk with Iran? yes. Should we cut up the agreement immediately? That’s absurd. Wouldn’t you want to know if they compiled? I’m going to vote against the agreement, because I don’t think there’s significant leverage, but it doesn’t mean that I would immediately not look at the agreement and cut it up without looking to see whether Iran is compiling. The same goes with China. I don’t think we need to be rash. I don’t think we need to be reckless. And I think we need to leave lines of communication open. Often we talk about whether we should be engaged in the world, or disengaged in the world, and I think this is an example of some who want to isolate us, actually, and not be engaged. We do need to be engaged with Russia. It doesn’t mean we give them a free pass, or China a free pass, but to be engaged means to continue to talk. We did throughout the Cold War and it would be a big mistake not to do it again.”
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