The United States should be spending money at home, not "nation-building abroad," and it is time to stop fighting in Syria and Afghanistan, Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday, while agreeing with President Donald Trump.
"I think the president deserves to become a mentor," the Kentucky Republican told Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime." "I think it takes a real statesman to end a war. I think it's very easy to start a war."
The fact is, he continued, there is "nobody left alive or free who attacked us on 9/11," said Paul. "There is nobody left alive or free who harbored those who attacked us on 9/11. We completed our mission. But when we change the mission to create a nation over there, building their roads and bridges and hotels and gas stations, we need to be spending that much money here at home."
Trump has said all along that under his presidency, the United States would "'go in and wipe out ISIS and come home,'" said Paul. "What happens is, we have taken 99% of their land, and yet people say, 'they might regrow.' Well, yes. That would be true in a thousand years."
There will always be radical extremists who want to attack the United States, Paul continued, but "do we always have to do the fighting? Do we always have to pay for it?"
A majority of Americans also want troops to return from Afghanistan, said Paul.
"We've been there 17 years," the senator said. "There is no way that leaving after 17 years is precipitous. We have stayed too long."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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