One day after his official announcement for president, Sen. Rand Paul came out swinging against an enemy that his conservative Republican base loves to hate: the media.
During a long list of interviews with more than half a dozen national media outlets, Paul pushed back against interviewers who sought to define him as having waffled on key issues concerning foreign and domestic policy.
In one exchange, Paul shushed an NBC reporter asking her to “calm down” in her aggressive exchange so he could get in a full answer to her question on abortion. And in another interview, Paul lectured an anchor on how she should pose questions to him about his policy positions.
Though the tact has clearly created waves among members of the media who seem to have taken collective offense, Paul’s aggressiveness harkens back to the widespread favor won by Newt Gingrich in the 2012 primary in which he routinely scolded the media for bias against Republicans.
