President Donald Trump is blasting Republican Sen. Rand Paul over his opposition to the president’s government spending package. Trump is piling on MAGA attacks on his fellow Republican this week as he strives to get his signature ‘big beautiful bill’ through the Senate after it passed the House.

‘Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting “NO” on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. The BBB is a big WINNER!!!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!’ Trump added in a following post.

Shortly after Trump’s attack on Tuesday, Paul took to the airwaves to defend his position, and explain what can be done to the GOP spending package to earn his support. New additions to the national debt were a non-starter for Paul, who notes that he does want to see the 2017 tax cuts made permanent. Paul also described the current $5 trillion in new debt as ‘Biden spending levels.’

‘This will be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever in our history. We’ve never raised the debt ceiling without meeting the target. You can say it doesn’t directly add to the debt but if you reach the ceiling you’ll meet that. We won’t discuss it for a year or two. I think it is a terrible idea to do this’ Paul told Fox News. On CBS’ Face the Nation over the weekend, Paul told host Margaret Brennan that the math in Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ ‘doesn’t really add up.’

‘Well, the math doesn’t really add up. One of the things this big and beautiful bill is, is it’s a vehicle for increasing spending for the military and for the border. It’s about $320 billion in new spending,’ Paul said. During a Monday afternoon appearance on Fox News ‘ America Reports, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called out Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for opposing the GOP spending package, which is soon headed to the Senate after it passed the House before Memorial Day.

‘Well, anyone who votes against the one big, beautiful bill including Senator Rand Paul, will be voting for a tax hike of more than $4 trillion on the American people and their voters will know about it,’ Leavitt warned. ‘That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill,’ Leavitt continued.

Paul was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, long before Trump’s foray into politics, and was reelected to a third term in 2022 during Joe Biden ‘s presidency. Paul is not up for election again until 2028. Kentucky’s other Senate seat is up as an open seat in the 2026 midterms election.

The commonwealth’s senior senator and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is not running for another term. Paul has been sharing his perspective against the GOP spending package this week, angering the MAGA camp. Paul compared the spending package with the funds anticipated to be saved by spending cuts pushed for by the Depart of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

‘That’s more than all the DOGE cuts that we found so far. So, the increase in spending put into this bill exceeds the DOGE cuts. When you look just at the border wall, they have $46.5 billion for the border wall,’ Paul said on Face the Nation. He went one: ‘Well, the current estimate from the CBP is $6.5 million per mile. So, if you did 1,000 miles, that’s $6.5 billion, but they have $46 billion. So they’ve inflated the cost of the wall eight fold,’ Paul continued. ‘So, there’s a lot of new spending that has to be counteracted. But essentially, this is a bill by the military industrial complex advocates who are padding the military budget. There’s going to be a lot of extra money.’

‘Look, the President has essentially stopped the border flow without- without new money and without any new legislation. So, I think they’re asking for too much money. And in the end, the way you add it up to see if it actually is going to save money or add money, is how much debt are they going to borrow? 5 trillion over two years, an enormous amount’ Paul concluded. A May 20th analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the federal deficit would increase by $3.8 trillion due to tax changes. Speaking with Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream on May 25th, Paul shared further reservations about the increase to the national debt, while also touting his past support for lowering taxes.

‘You know, the bigger a bill, the more it includes, the more difficult it is to get everybody to agree to things. I supported the tax cuts in 2017. I support making them permanent. So, I support that part of the bill,’ Paul noted. ‘I support spending cuts. I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren’t going to explode the debt,’ Paul argued. Later in the conversation, Paul also warned that ‘the deficit is a threat to our country. I think it’s the greatest threat to our national security’, adding that the United States brings in ‘about $5 trillion in revenue’, while spending $7 trillion.