Exclusive — Rand Paul Skipping Obama’s Final State of the Union: ‘His Is a Failed Presidency’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, will along with his campaign trail competition Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) be skipping President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address as President of the United States. In an exclusive phone interview with Breitbart News, Paul said that he made that decision for a number of reasons most notably that Obama has nothing “new to offer” and that Obama’s “is a failed presidency.”

“I’ve seen it and heard it before, and I’m not sure he has anything new to offer—I really think that his is a failed presidency,” Paul said.

I think that doubling the debt is something that none of us should be proud of, and I really think that anything he’ll offer tonight won’t change my opinion that really one of the worst things he has done for this country is the collapse of the separation of powers—trying to write his own legislation on immigration, writing his own legislation on gun control, and writing his own legislation to take the country to war without a congressional vote—all of these things I think are unconstitutional. Like I say, been there done that. We’re going to try to get our message out as opposed to his.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) will be the only GOP presidential candidate who is attending the State of the Union by Obama—something that’s fairly odd, since Rubio has by far the worst attendance record out of any U.S. Senator. Rubio has missed more votes than any other Senator and has even skipped security briefings.

When asked for his thoughts on Rubio skipping crucial matters of U.S. Senate business while showing up for pomp and circumstance for Obama’s final State of the Union, Paul gave Rubio credit for showing up to actually vote for his “Audit The Fed” legislation that would audit the Federal Reserve earlier on Tuesday.

“To his credit, he did show up to vote on my bill that I’ve worked on for five years on auditing the Fed—he showed up, but Ted Cruz, who says he’s for Audit The Fed, didn’t show up to vote,” Paul told Breitbart News. “So I think a lot of the liberty movement will be disappointed he didn’t get up today to vote for Audit The Fed.”

While Paul’s decision to bail on Obama can be taken as a snub, Cruz’s team insists his decision to skip it is not.

“It’s not a snub,” Rick Tyler, Cruz’s communications director, said. “He’s going to be in New Hampshire, working hard to win New Hampshire. No disrespect. It just is going to work out this way.”