Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky broke with President Trump over the war in Iran, telling CNN the conflict has left the United States worse off and warning that Senate Republicans could face political consequences in November if they approve billions more in war funding.
“I think the Iran war has not been a success,” Paul told CNN’s Manu Raju in a hallway interview that aired on CNN NewsNight. “I’ve been opposed to the Iran war from the beginning. I think by any objective measure, we’re worse off than we were before the war.”
Asked how voters might react if the Republican-controlled Congress approved roughly $70 billion for the war before the midterms, Paul said cost concerns were already weighing on the public. “I think people are mostly upset about how much things cost, so when they go to see gas prices, but it’s also really just all across the board,” Paul said. Asked directly whether there would be political backlash in November, Paul replied, “Probably.”
Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and also sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, has opposed the war since it began Feb. 28. He questioned the initial rationale for the conflict in March, telling Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, “As far as the reasons for the war, there have been many different reasons floated, but none of them, I think, have been very convincing.”
Paul’s remarks came the same week the Senate voted 47-49 against discharging a war powers resolution that would have directed the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. Paul did not vote in favor of an earlier version of such a resolution in June, instead voting present, which allowed that measure to fail.
Paul has separately warned that the war’s costs could damage Republicans’ standing heading into the midterms. Speaking on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria” before the most recent escalation, Paul said, “We are behind the eight ball as far as the electoral process,” citing polling that showed Republicans trailing in generic congressional ballot surveys, according to a report on his comments. “If you add in high gas prices, high oil prices, and if we are still bombing Iran with kinetic action, people don’t want to call it war, if there’s still kinetic action that causes oil to be over $100, I think you’re going to see a disastrous election.”
The interview aired the same week the war entered a more violent phase following the collapse of a ceasefire reached in June, with four U.S. service members killed in Jordan and Iraq over the preceding weekend. Trump has continued to defend the campaign publicly, saying Wednesday that “Americans aren’t against the war,” a claim that recent polling has contradicted. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll found just 33 percent of Americans support the conflict, about 59 percent oppose it, and only 28 percent said the war was worth fighting, according to polling averages tracked by Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin.
The funding figure Paul referenced tracks with the Trump administration’s supplemental request currently before Congress, which seeks $67.1 billion specifically for the Iran war as part of an $87.6 billion package that also includes non-defense spending. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 21 that the war has cost $37.5 billion to date and that further delays in funding could force training curtailments.
Paul’s willingness to publicly criticize the war’s trajectory reflects a broader shift among some Senate Republicans as the conflict has dragged on. Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican to vote in favor of the most recent war powers resolution, and other GOP lawmakers have privately expressed unease about the war’s toll ahead of the midterms, according to reporting on the growing Republican discomfort with the administration’s approach.
Paul is not new to breaking with his party on questions of military intervention. He has long described himself as a noninterventionist and previously voted against other Trump administration foreign policy priorities, including military aid packages he argued lacked sufficient congressional oversight.
Manu Raju, who conducted the interview, serves as CNN’s Chief Congressional Correspondent and anchors the network’s Sunday program Inside Politics.
Neither the White House nor Senate Republican leadership has issued a direct public response to Paul’s remarks.