Exclusive–Rand Paul: Trump ‘Avoided a Disaster’ by Withdrawing from Syria

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News Daily that President Donald Trump “avoided a disaster” by withdrawing from Syria.

Sen. Paul spoke with Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow as he released his new book, The Case Against Socialism, in which he recounts the horrors of socialism throughout the 21st century, as well as dispelling common myths about socialism. Paul explained his case and vision for freedom in a lengthy interview with Breitbart News Sunday host Matthew Boyle.

Paul, a staunch non-interventionist and advocate for President Trump’s America First foreign policy, cheered President Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. The Kentucky senator said that he believes Trump’s withdrawal from Syria is entirely “consistent” with his foreign policy vision.

The senator told Breitbart News Daily that the president could have avoided further entrenchment and conflict in the Middle East by leaving American soldiers in northern Syria.

“I think the president avoided a disaster and that if 50 soldiers had been killed, could you have imagined the response that could have been unleashed by the United States? And it would have been a conflagration that I think nobody would really desire.”

Sen. Paul also criticized the neoconservative “war caucus” such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who believe that America cannot negotiate a peaceful resolution with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Paul said that the best solution for Syrian Kurds is to create an autonomous state in Syria, similar to the one that currently exists for Kurds in Iraq.

“Their best chance for a permanent sort of place in Syria is actually with Assad. If that comes into being, my hope is that the Syrian Kurds will get something similar to what the Iraqi Kurds and that is a semi-autonomous region like a province. They agree to part of Syria, and they agree not to attack Turkey, and that maybe some sort of peaceful coexistence can happen. Believe it or not, the Iraqi Kurdish area is doing pretty well,” Paul said.

Pivoting towards Sen. Paul’s book, Breitbart News Daily host Marlow noted that, despite America being one of the most free-market countries, “socialism is becoming mainstream.”

Paul said that his book ‘is to remind people what happened under socialism in the last century. It’s associated almost invariably with famine and genocide.”

The Kentucky conservative rebuked many common myths that socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) propagate, including that Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden amount to socialist paradises.

Paul said, “Scandinavia is not socialist. They have private property, private stock exchange; they have free trade with the world, and so really there is no aspect of socialism there. There is a big welfare state, though, but even that Bernie gets wrong.”

He added that in Scandinavia, the middle class pays for their large welfare state, which includes a 25 percent sales tax, a 60 percent income tax for most middle-class Scandinavians.

Sen. Paul’s interview with Breitbart News Daily follows as he appeared on The View, in which Donald Trump-critic Anna Navarro attempted to rebuke Paul’s argument that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was leading the nation to ruin through his socialist policies.

“Venezuela has more oil than Saudia Arabia. They were one of the richest countries in South America, and they have been devastated by socialism,” Paul told Breitbart News Daily.

“Maduro is a thug and a socialist. We have to explore the association between thuggery and socialism, and if you don’t get that, you’re going to keep getting Stalin, Hitler, Mao, how come every time we try socialism, it ends up in authoritarianism? That’s the question they need to answer,” Paul added.

Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M. Eastern.