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updated 2:59 PM EDT, Fri October 10, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul has said repeatedly that he's considering a run for president in 2016

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Wolf Blitzer's interview with Rand Paul will air in full on CNN's "The Situation Room" at 5 p.m. ET

(CNN) -- In 2011, Sen. Rand Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he would favor a halt of U.S. foreign aid, including assistance to Israel.

In August, at the height of the recent Gaza conflict, the Kentucky Republican made headlines for declaring he never proposed ending aid to the country.

Democrats and other critics seized on his sharp change in tune and blasted the likely presidential contender for flip-flopping. The criticism kicked off a wave of close scrutiny of Paul's past statements.

On Friday, Rand spoke with Blitzer again, saying he stands by what he told him in 2011.

"Interestingly, they keep playing our interview, Wolf. So we had a great interview. But the interesting thing of it is I actually still do agree with what I told you. Ultimately, I think a country that's $18 trillion in debt should not be borrowing money from China to send it to anyone," he said.

What Rand Paul thinks is the 'biggest mistake' for GOP

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Rand Paul doubles to down on aid to Israel

Rand Paul usually starts with a joke; it relieves the tension thats never there. On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the junior Senator from Kentucky is running a little late, but a University of South Carolina lecture room is already overfull, stragglers fighting for space behind a row of TV cameras. A few college Democrats are in the room, but as listeners, not hecklers.

Most of the students actually sound like Brett Harris, a sophomore studying political science, who had showed up an hour early to win a front-row center seat. Id have camped out on the lawn if Id had to, he says, clutching a red-and-white STAND WITH RAND sign to his matching STAND WITH RAND T-shirt. Of course I would! Its Rand Paul!

Harris starts to explain his affinity for Paul, and how right hes been about foreign policy, when the man himself arrives; jeans and battered cowboy boots, no jacket. This will be his uniform for two days of speeches and schmoozing and selfies, across South Carolina and North Carolina, in front of everyone from military veterans to pastors to reporters to donors to students. The students would come first.

Will we in 20 years be fighting a war and saying, Oh yeah, we voted for it in 2001?

Rand Paul

Last time I was here, I was at a barbecue, says Paul. The guy in front of me was loading up two plates of barbecue. I said, Youre not gonna live long eating like that! He said, My granddad lived to be 105. I said, He didnt live to 105 by eating like that. He said, No, my granddad lived to be 105 by minding his own business.

The joke is as fresh as the last grease scrapings from an outdoor smoker. Two years ago, Paul liked to deliver it before introducing his father, Rep. Ron Paul, to the Republican voters tasked with picking a presidential nominee. His father badly lost the South Carolina primary both times he ran, which was taken as evidence that antiwar libertarianism had no place in the heartland of the modern Republican party. Rand Paul is in the state to explain what these voters missed. His sort of politics should be popularin fact, isnt it popular already?

Dave Weigel/Bloomberg

Rand Paul speaks to students at the University of South Carolina.

Sometimes I think if we ought to have a campaign theme for government, that ought to be it, says Paul when the guffaws subside. Minding your own business. Maybe theres enough of us in the country who say, you know what? Lets be part of the Leave Me Alone coalition.

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Episode 3

Ferguson Is a Libertarian Dystopia (w/ Mark Ames)
Libertarians claim to oppose police violence, but they #39;ve spent decades championing the privatization of police and prison that warped our criminal justice system. Read Mark Ames #39; piece on...

By: The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow

Excerpt from:
Ferguson Is a Libertarian Dystopia (w/ Mark Ames) - Video

Three Senate candidates debate issues

By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press

WILMINGTON, N.C. U.S. Senate candidate Sean Haugh relishes his current job delivering pizzas because it brings joy to hungry families anticipating his arrival.

But the former Libertarian Party leader from Durham also enjoys take out more specifically taking out North Carolina from under a two-party system he says narrows messages voters receive and breeds candidates who must rely on outside groups for campaign funds and support to be successful.

"We have two corporate special-interest candidates, and there's me," Haugh said in an interview.

Haugh and other Libertarian leaders are hopeful his candidacy in November will mark the most successful showing ever for the party in a North Carolina statewide election.

Some polls have shown him receiving a percentage of the vote in the high single digits. Even getting 2 or 3 percent, like the Libertarian candidates for U.S. Senate in 2008 and 2010, could be enough to alter the outcome of the tight race between Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis.

"I am here to provide an alternative that other people really aren't hearing," Haugh said during his only television debate appearance in Wilmington. "I get to go all across the political spectrum, to all different kinds of audiences, with the exact same message stop all war and stop spending more money that we have."

The optimism reflects recent progress for North Carolina's only other certified state party, which preaches limited government and staying out of people's personal business, as well as low approval numbers for his two competitors.

For decades, the state Libertarian Party had to collect tens of thousands of signatures routinely to keep its candidates on the ballot because nominees for governor or president didn't receive the 10 percent of the vote needed to remain an official party. When they fell short, state officials converted registered Libertarian voters to unaffiliated.

More here:
Libertarian Haugh could shift NC Senate race

A federal judge has denied Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate David Patterson's request to force a public broadcaster to include him in Monday night's debate between Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.

U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove ruled that Kentucky Educational Television did not exclude David Patterson from its Kentucky Tonight program solely because of his political views. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled public broadcasters can exclude candidates based on their level of support but not because of their political views.

"The First Amendment is not a rule of quantity at any cost," Van Tatenhove wrote. "Voters may actually benefit by a forum or debate that includes only those candidates that have a realistic chance of winning rather than many voices competing for very limited time. What KET cannot do is pick and choose candidates based on their viewpoints. KET has not done so here."

Libertarian Party of Kentucky chairman Ken Moellman said he was not happy with the decision but said the state party does not have enough money to appeal the ruling. Patterson, in a news release, criticized KET for requiring candidates raise a minimum of $100,000 to appear in the debate.

"That means you must be rich or have rich friends to even stand a chance," Patterson said. "Kentuckians now have their hard-earned tax dollars being used to deprive them of knowing their options when they walk into the ballot box."

Van Tatenhove said the legitimacy of the $100,000 threshold "is not presently at issue." But he did note in a footnote that former Kentucky Congressman William Natcher, who died in 1994 and served 44 years in Congress, refused to accept campaign donations, thus making him ineligible to appear on Kentucky Tonight based on the current criteria.

Patterson argued that KET had discriminated against him based on thousands of pages of emails where KET officials discussed tightening the criteria to participate in the debate so as to exclude non-serious candidates. The emails included one from Mike Brower, KET's senior director of production operations, who wrote the goal of the criteria "is to have a way to defend not including only the most extreme cases, like out of state crusaders, or wacky people who paid the $50 and got 2 names on a form to qualify as a candidate."

But Van Tatenhove pointed to other emails, where KET's executive director wrote their intent was "to follow the law, be fair to all concerned, (and) protect and maintain KET's integrity and reputation for inclusion and fairness."

"When taken as a whole, the picture that emerges is of an institution trying to do the right thing," Van Tatenhove wrote. "Maybe the language of these electronic conversations was at times unartful. Maybe the private thoughts of KET executives, now made public, have the feel of prejudging viewpoints. But it cannot be said that these conversations, many early in a process that included careful consultation with legal counsel, constitute viewpoint discrimination."

McConnell and Grimes are scheduled to appear on KET Monday night at 8 p.m.

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Judge denies Libertarian's debate request