Sen. Rand Paul is mulling a 2028 presidential run, the Kentucky Republican revealed in an interview set to air Sunday.
“We’re thinking about it, and I would say 50-50,” Paul told “CBS Sunday Morning.”
“We’ll make a decision after the election.”
The libertarian-leaning senator, who has long advocated for fiscal conservatism, civil liberties and a non-interventionist foreign policy, lamented the GOP’s populist shift — and detailed a potential different path for the party.
“There used to really be a free market/Libertarian wing of the party, and now there’s not much left,” Paul explained. “In fact, on many days it’s me in the Senate, the only one left for free trade.
“But I think there still is a desire among business for it, and it may make the so-called Libertarian vote — which might not be big enough to ever win anything — if you combine that with the Chamber of the Commerce and the traditional business community that doesn’t like protectionism, there may be a force out there for a different direction from the party other than being continued to be led by populism.”
Paul ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, but dropped out following a fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses, after receiving just 4.5% of the vote.
Since then the senator has butted heads with President Trump on many issues, including his tariff policy, airstrikes on suspected drug boats, the military raid in Venezuela that captured Nicolas Maduro and talk of seizing Greenland.
Paul also voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and was the sole GOP no-vote on a measure to end the record-long 43-day government shutdown last fall.
Most recently, Paul has supported Democrat-led efforts to rein in Trump’s military authority after going to war with Iran and opposed the president’s nomination of Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
