“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade defended President Trump on Tuesday after Sen. Rand Paul criticized administration appointees, asking the Kentucky Republican if he knows what Trump wants better than the president does.
“It disappoints me that some of the people he’s appointed around him are unapologetic enthusiasts still for the Iraq War. Between Bolton, Pompeo, all of the others, it seems like they aren’t people who share the president’s vision that the Iraq War was a mistake,” Paul said.
{mosads}”I want to support the President Trump I supported during the campaign, and so I think someone needs to speak out against having too many of these neoconservatives in the administration,” the senator continued.
“So you know President Trump’s vision better than he does? And you know what he wants better than he does?” Kilmeade responded.
“Touché, touché,” Paul said laughing. “But you know, this happens in every administration. You remember, even in the Reagan administration, so much of us loved Reagan coming in, he was a great conservative, but sometimes he appointed people who conservatives really wish were more from the conservative school.”
Paul, who often expresses anti-interventionist and libertarian views, has spoken out against Trump’s move to nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be secretary of State.
He has also slammed the president’s pick to replace Pompeo, CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel.
“I don’t think you really want people who are eager for war to be running the State Department. You want a diplomat,” Paul told CNN last month, adding that he would do “whatever it takes” to block Pompeo’s and Haspel’s nominations.
Paul also pushed back against the notion of John Bolton joining the Trump administration before the former United Nations ambassador was named national security adviser.
“Bolton has been for all of the wars Donald Trump has been against, most importantly the Iraq war. His policies would have been perfectly at home in a Hillary Clinton administration, but should have no place in President Trump’s White House,” Paul wrote in a Fox News op-ed last month.