Fresh off of a strong performance in this week’s Fox Business News / Wall Street Journal debate, Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delivered some strong words aimed at President Obama’s foreign policy while addressing a crowd in Altoona, Iowa.
“What kind of idiot sends four people to war?” Paul asked supporters while referring to the $500 million Department of Defense program set up to train Syrian rebels. The Obama administration abandoned the program after only a small handful of trained rebels actually showed up to fight. In total, the Department of Defense spent $2 million for every one rebel trained.
“If you go to war, you don’t go with underwhelming force, you go to war with overwhelming force,” Paul said.
According to Huffington Post, Paul also criticized Obama’s move to deploy 50 special forces troops to Syria with Congress’ approval.
“If you want to send troops over there, we don’t send 50,” Paul said. “We have a declaration of war and we vote on it in Congress.”
Paul’s debate performance also bolstered his fundraising. According to the Des Moines Register, the moment Paul challenged U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on military spending, Paul’s fundraising went up 600 percent.
Nationally, Paul is tied for 6th place with Ohio Governor John Kasich and former HP executive Carly Fiorina. However, the most recent round of polling shows Paul steadily gaining some momentum. In Fox News’ latest poll, Paul was tied for 5th with Jeb Bush. A state-wide poll in Iowa mirrors those results with Paul tying Bush for 5th.