Sen. Rand Paul says he and his family have been uninvited from the White House picnic for members of Congress, accusing the administration of targeting him over his opposition to some of President Donald Trump’s policies.
“I think I’m the first senator in the history of the United States to be uninvited to the White House picnic,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday. “I just find this incredibly petty. I mean — I have been, I think, nothing but polite to the President.”
Paul said he found out that he has been taken off the guest list when he reached out about picking up tickets but was told instead was told that he and his family would not be allowed to attend. He specified he did not know if the President or a White House staffer had made the call to uninvite him but said the “level of immaturity is beyond words.”
Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky, generally supports Trump but has been willing to criticize the administration’s policies on areas like spending and tariffs. He’s also the Senate GOP’s one “no” vote right now Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Paul also accused White House staff of “running sort of a paid influencer campaign against me for two weeks on Twitter.”
“We know they’re being paid because … someone has told us that the White House called them from the White House, and offered them money to attack me online,” he said.
Paul also appeared to take a veiled swipe at Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller, saying there are White House staffers who “are basically going around casually talking about getting rid of habeas corpus.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
