Republican Sen. Rand Paul is blasting Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for his failures on the deficit and support for a bill that allows intelligence agencies to spy on some Americans without a warrant.
Paul told Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" on Sunday that he's, "not so sure there's a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and Democrats being in charge."
Paul's remarks come in the wake of the House of Representatives on Friday passing a two-year renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
According to NBC News, the renewal passed 273-147, with 126 Republicans and 147 Democrats supporting it.
Section 702 allows government agencies to spy on foreigners overseas without a warrant. The danger with FISA Section 702 comes from its ability to allow warrantless spying on Americans who may communicate with foreigners.
Paul criticized Johnson after he had a change of heart regarding Section 702 saying, "... he's completely changed and lost all his principles on the idea that we shouldn't spy on Americans without a warrant."
Fielding questions on Capitol Hill in a video posted to X on Thursday, Johnson explained how his views shifted after he became House speaker.
"... I saw the abuses of the FBI, the terrible abuses over and over and over, the hundreds of thousands of abuses and then when I became speaker, I went to the staff and got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that to understand the necessity of section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security and they gave me a different perspective," he said.
