Rand Paul: Mike Johnson Voting with Democrats on FISA, Spending 'Abdicating the Power of the Purse'

During this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for voting along with Democrats on two key subjects — the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) last week and a $1.2 trillion budget package last month.

Paul acknowledged that Senate Republicans were also partly to blame. However, he accused Johnson of abdicating the power of the purse.

“I want to also ask you about what you heard from the speaker regarding FISA,” host Maria Bartiromo asked. “Can we trust government? Can we trust government to use FISA appropriately and legally?”

“Absolutely not,” Paul replied. “Americans shouldn’t be spied on by their own government. The Fourth Amendment was put in by our founding fathers to protect us. FISA doesn’t obey the Fourth Amendment. And so Speaker Johnson was incredibly wrong. He broke the tie. He voted with the Democrats. Here we have the leader of the Republicans in the House votes with the Democrats against a warrant requirement.”

“We also have Speaker Johnson voting for the spending package, once again with the majority of the Democrats,” he continued. “As I see it now, I’m not so sure there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and the Democrats being in charge. The debt — the deficit this year will be $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. And that’s Mike Johnson’s bill. He put it forward. He supported it with a minority of Republicans, with the majority of Democrats. This is not using the power of the purse. This is abdicating the power of the purse.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor