Rand Paul Says Sheldon Adelson Told Him That Adelson Is Not Going to Spend Big Bucks to Stymie Paul's Presidential Run
After Rand Paul was widely excoriated for failing to show proper enthusiastic respect for Dear Leader Netanyahu after his war address to Congress, I blogged about his Israel problem in "Can Rand Paul Ever Be Sufficiently Pro Israel?"
In that post I mentioned the previously reported New York Times story saying that GOP superfixer Sheldon Adelson had announced his intention to spend big if necessary to ensure Paul didn't get the GOP presidential nod.
Rand Paul now says that he personally met with Adelson and was assured that Times story was a lie, as National Journal reports:
"I sat down with he and his wife yesterday and they assured me there was no truth to that," Paul said on the radio show Jewish Moments in the Morning on Wednesday, "That was somebody spreading falsehoods."
Paul has aggressively courted Adelson, who was in Washington to watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address a joint session of Congress, and other top Jewish Republican donors in the last year. Paul said on the program that he and the Adelsons also discussed his legislation to cut off funding for the Palestinian Authority. "We have good relations and we had a great and very informative discussion," Paul said.
It may or may not make Paul fans feel better to know that a man who wasted fortunes on Newt Gingrich and thinks we should proactively nuke Iran is someone he's courting.