Acting presidential candidate Rand Paul argued Saturday that the government should “not be involved” in legalized gaming, obliquely criticized Gov. Brian Sandoval for expanding Medicaid and claimed he is “of two minds” on a Nevada nuclear waste dump but is “not afraid of radiation in a mountain.”
In a brief interview after a speech to activists at the Atlantis hotel/casino in Reno, the Kentucky senator also acknowledged he had “not thought it through” on how to return federal lands to Nevada after declaring, to great applause from the crowd of 100 or so packed into a small ballroom, “I personally think lands ought to belong to Nevada and not the federal government.”
Paul also said he has a “cordial” relationship with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, even though “he calls me names sometimes and I call him names sometimes, too, but that’s just politics.”
Paul also acknowledged in the interview that his on position foreign aid, which had been strangle all of it, now “may be slightly different” in that he only opposes giving money to regimes “who hates us and burn our flag.”
Paul’s Reno campaign stop for his incipient White House bid was the second day of a trip to early-state Nevada, where his father, Ron, has had a strong following that controlled the GOP apparatus but failed to reach expectations in presidential caucuses last cycle when the ex-Texas congressman was crushed by Mitt Romney. And it came at the end of a newsy week for Paul the Younger, who visited New Hampshire, which I understand also is an early state…
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