Is Rand Paul Really a Traitor?: Podcast

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been taking his lumps in the media and other sectors of the anti-Trumposphere for these comments on CNN Sunday about Russia’s hackery into the 2016 presidential campaign: “If we have proof that they did it, we should spend our time protecting ourselves instead of having this witch hunt on the president. I think we need to be done with this so we can protect our election….We all do it. What we need to do is make sure our electoral process is protected. They are not going to admit it in the same way we’re not going to admit we were involved in the Ukrainian elections or the Russian elections.” To which Mother Jones D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn tweeted simply: “Traitor.”

This is one of several often-hysterical Trump/Russia-related controversies tackled today on the editor-roundtable version of the Reason Podcast, featuring Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie, and me. Is the U.S. president’s seeming equivalence of Russian and American interference in other countries’ domestic elections accurate, and/or inappropriate? What does it mean (and is it meaningful) that Trump calls the European Union, China, and Russia “foes“? Is it proper for the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania to express clear preferences in the politics of its allies? These and other questions come under vigorous, if world-weary, debate.

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