Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) dinged Hillary Clinton during a speech in New Hampshire on Saturday, suggesting the Democratic presidential candidate could face a serious primary challenge.
“I’m starting to worry that when Hillary Clinton travels, there’s gonna need to be two planes – one for her and her entourage, and one for her baggage,” Paul, himself a presidential candidate, said to laughs and applause at the Republican Leadership Summit.
{mosads}”I’m concerned that the plane with the baggage is really getting heavy and teetering,” Paul added.
Clinton, who announced her campaign last weekend, wrapped up a road trip to Iowa this week by flying coach back to the East Coast and was seen pulling her own luggage.
Paul cited criticism that the Clinton Foundation had recently accepted donations from foreign governments and also referenced Clinton’s acknowledgement of exclusively using private email while secretary of State. She had noted that the Secret Service guarded the server hosting her email.
“Does she think there are like floppy disks in her basement?” Paul said.
His remarks came after a speech at the two-day summit, when responding to a question on whether Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom many liberal supporters have attempted to lure into running in 2016, could become Clinton’s pick for vice president.
“I wouldn’t preclude anybody, yet, in the Democrat primary,” Paul said.
Earlier in his about 30-minute appearance, Paul sought to distinguish himself from other declared and likely presidential candidates at the Republican confab on issues such as foreign policy.
“Why the hell did we ever go into Libya in the first place?” Paul said, after ripping Clinton’s response as secretary of State leading up to and after the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
“They would have just done the same thing, just 10 times over,” Paul said, referring to other Republican presidential contenders advocating U.S. boots on the ground in Libya.
The Kentucky ophthalmologist invoked his training as a physician to generally remark that on intervention in foreign matters, the United States should “think about it before we get involved.”
He also hammered those who would support the National Security Agency’s collection of phone data after Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) took a veiled shot at Paul in a speech at the summit the previous day.
“It’s none of their damn business what you’re doing on your phone,” Paul said Saturday of the federal government.
“The Fourth Amendment is not consistent with a warrant that says ‘Mr. Verizon’ on it,” Paul said. “Last I heard, Mr. Verizon is not a person.”
Clinton allies shot back at his remarks.
“Nobody knows baggage like Rand Paul, who is trying to figure out how to carry the baggage of his anti-woman stances and his ever-evolving flip flops,” Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the pro-Clinton Correct the Record, said in a statement to The Hill.
“Rand Paul continues to talk about Hillary Clinton while Hillary continues to talk about the issues that matter to everyday people, like good-paying jobs and a healthy economy,” Watson added.
– Updated at 2:31 p.m.