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You won't be seeing Sen. Rand Paul, a bottle of fine Kentucky bourbon under his arm, paying a social call on President Donald Trump at the White House anytime soon.

"You know I don't think I'm going to be invited to their Christmas party next year," Paul told me on Wednesday during an interview for "The Chicago Way," my podcast on WGN radio. "But it's sort of been that way from the very beginning."

We talked of Trump and bourbon but also about the Constitution and the need for originalist, conservative justices on the Supreme Court to check the power of this and every other president, something liberals trapped in partisan hysteria seem unable to understand.

But we also talked of Paul's war with the neoconservatives the brains behind the Republican War Party wing that drove us into the Iraq War that broke open this week.

You declared war on the neocons, I said.

"You interpreted that pretty well correctly," the libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky said.

Paul, a former candidate for president, has kept Trump at arm's length, supporting Trump's talk of tax cuts and cutting government regulations, but breaking with him loudly this week over reports that the president was considering bringing leading neoconservative Elliott Abrams onto his team as deputy secretary of state.

Abrams worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He was convicted of two counts of "withholding" information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal and was pardoned by Bush. The neoconservatives despised Trump for his criticisms of the Iraq War and for their failed "nation building" policy. Many neocons joined the #NeverTrump movement and sought refuge with Hillary Clinton.

Reports of Abrams being considered for a top Trump administration post baffled and angered Paul, and he publicly went nuclear.

"One of Elliott Abrams' statements during the campaign was that the chair that Washington and Lincoln both sat in, Trump was not fit to sit in," Paul said on "The Chicago Way." "He was very anti-Trump, but he was also very anti what Trump was saying. Trump would say the Iraq War was a mistake. Elliott Abrams, (who) was one of the key architects of Iraq, would disagree.

"And I hope (Abrams' appointment) won't happen. But it is somewhat unnerving that he would be considered for a post when he was viscerally and loudly opposed to most of what Trump brought that was a change in regards to foreign policy," Paul said.

What's odd about all this was that at the beginning of the Republican presidential primaries, it was Paul who was condemned by the GOP establishment and neocons as something of a dangerous "isolationist." Democrats aren't the only ones who try to shut down debate about what threatens them by demonizing their opponents with alleged sins. But there is another word for isolationist: noninterventionist.

The American people don't want another war, not in the Middle East, not with Russia, not with anyone. The people aren't crazy about intervening, because they know who bleeds, and it isn't the careerist war architects in Washington. Members of our armed forces are the ones who bleed.

"I've been unafraid to say that we need to have a foreign policy that's constitutional," Paul said, "that separates the powers, that understands that our Founding Fathers said that Congress shall declare war. One of my biggest pet peeves right now is that we're at war in Yemen and nobody's even talking about it.

"So I will support Trump when he's against regulations and when he's for balancing the budget or lower taxes, but when he strays and he's for a foreign policy that endangers or threatens to get us involved in more war in the Middle East, I'll have to oppose him," Paul said.

And so he has.

But there was no way I would spend time talking with Paul and not talk about the Constitution. I had written a recent column about why originalist justices are needed on the Supreme Court to check the political appetites and impulses of a growing Imperial Presidency and that Trump's most vocal critics should understand this. Paul read it and reached out to say he liked it.

"I appreciated the article I believe you wrote talking about how believing in separation of powers should be exactly what (Trump critics are) for, because that means that the executive branch doesn't get to act unilaterally on its own, if you have justices that actually believe in separation of powers," Paul said.

Paul said he doesn't think his criticisms of Abrams represent a total break with Trump.

"I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, so I don't purposely set out to challenge the president of my own party."

So what kind of Kentucky bourbon do you pour into that half-full glass?

"You will get me impeached from office if I chose one bourbon over the other, but I will make sure your listeners know that all bourbon has to come from Kentucky if it wants to be called bourbon. And so we're very proud of our bourbon trade. We welcome people from Chicago to come on down and sample our bourbon."

And you're welcome to come up here and watch Mayor Rahm Emanuel begin to self-destruct.

"That's bad enough from a distance," he said. "I don't think I want to see that from up close."

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast with John Kass and WGN's Jeff Carlin here: http://www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.

jskass@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @John_Kass

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Sen. Rand Paul's war with the neocons - Chicago Tribune