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Republican lawmaker calls for change after receiving death threat package on ‘The Story’<\/p>\n
Republican Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News on Tuesday that a tweet posted by singer-songwriter Richard Marx could be partially responsible for the suspicious package he received at his Kentucky home a day earlier. <\/p>\n
“You know, hundreds of people on Twitter every day are wishing me violence, wishing my family violence,” Paul told “The Story” host Martha MacCallum, referring specifically to a tweet from “this songwriter from a long time ago that nobody has heard ever of.”<\/p>\n
A package filled with unidentified white powder arrived at the lawmaker’s home Monday, bearing a picture of a bruised and bandaged Paul with a gun to his head and a threat printed beneath it: “I\u2019ll finish what your neighbor started you motherf-.”<\/p>\n
The threat referenced Paul’s 2017 attack where he was assaulted by his neighbor, Rene Boucher, while doing yard work. Boucher significantly injured the senator at the time, breaking five of his ribs, and eventually pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress.<\/p>\n
A day before the package arrived at Paul’s house, Marx, an American singer and podcast host took issue with Paul’s announcement that he planned to forego the coronavirus vaccine because his bout with COVID-19 last year left him with natural antibodies, tweeting “If I ever meet Rand Paul\u2019s neighbor I\u2019m going to hug him and buy him as many drinks as he can consume.” Twitter reportedly said the tweet did not violate their policy and elected not to remove it from the site.<\/p>\n
“Twitter claims they have a policy but they don’t take it down. They leave it up. Twitter now announced today this guy doesn’t violate their policy. So he’s allowed to offer to buy drinks to somebody\u2026you know, I almost died at that time from the infections and from the lung surgery that I had. And they are allowed to get on Twitter\u2026.” Paul said.<\/p>\n
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The lawmaker said he is “tired” of Twitter’s look-away approach when it comes to hateful and threatening messages against Republicans, and questioned whether their safety would be better protected if they collectively bade farewell to the platform. <\/p>\n
“This is a private company that hates conservatives, hates Republicans. They don’t want us on there and ultimately maybe the answer is Republicans need to just quit. We need to leave it. Because every day they allow hundreds if not thousands of people to wish me and my family violence. And frankly, I’m tired of it,” Paul said.<\/p>\n
“I’m just tired of them allowing this and tired of them blaming it on the right. I was at the ball field when a Bernie Sanders shooter almost skilled Steve Scalise\u2026so I’m sick and tired of the violence coming from the left.” <\/p>\n
“I take these threats immensely seriously,” Paul wrote in a statement Monday. “I have been targeted multiple times now, it is reprehensible that Twitter allows C-list celebrities to advocate for violence against me and my family. This must stop. Just this weekend Richard Marx called for violence against me and now we receive this despicable powder filled letter.” <\/p>\n
Marx rejected Paul’s accusation that he incited violence of any kind in a tweet late Monday. <\/p>\n
“I had six ribs broken,” Paul clapped back.”Three of them dislocated where they rubbed on each other for weeks and weeks till they healed. They damaged my lung. I had pneumonia twice. A year later I was coughing up blood. I had to have a portion of my lung removed, then got an infection between the lung and the chest wall and almost died from and have permanent scarring of my lung and he’s offering a guy to buy drinks to somebody that will do it again and finish the job. That sounds like he’s advocating violence.”<\/p>\n
Paul called Marx a “despicable human” and “an irrational idiot” who is “angry because I’m not getting vaccinated.”<\/p>\n
“Guess what. In India, there’s not enough vaccines. Do you think we should be debating whether people should be getting the vaccine that have already had the vaccine or save it for those that have not gotten the disease? This is a public health discussion that could save millions of lives,” he argued.<\/p>\n
“This should not be a political issue. They should not want to kill me and send anthrax to my house.”<\/p>\n
Paul told Fox News later Tuesday that he plans to speak with Twitter about the incident. <\/p>\n
“We have 1,000 people on the internet every day on Twitter who wish violence on me and my family and Twitter does not a damn thing about it. I’m talking with Twitter this afternoon and I’m going to let them know. We’ve been letting them know for a year,” he said. “We have people every day by the 1,000s, wishing that I would get assaulted again. I was nearly killed and they just think it’s funny. “<\/p>\n
“The powder turned out to be non-lethal or toxic wasn’t a poison,” Paul added, “but it is a form of terrorism and they’ll be fully prosecuted if they can find them.”<\/p>\n