Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told
Newsmax TV on Thursday that President Barack Obama is defying the will of Congress, and risks "destroying the concept of the separation of powers" with "lawless" executive actions on immigration, war and health care.
But there is not much Republicans in Congress can do about it while the president's party still controls the Senate, Paul told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner.
"We don't have the power to do a lot, to tell you the truth, until January," said the first-term Republican senator and rumored presidential candidate for 2016.
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
The president is just hours from unveiling a go-it-alone amnesty measure for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Critics call the expected move unconstitutional, and an insult to Congress as well as to voters who resoundingly rejected Obama's party and policies in the Nov. 4 off-year election.
"I'm amazed he thinks he can get away with it," Paul said. "It also will ruin any chance of any kind of moderate immigration reform from occurring."
"This fall, there is no great solution," he added. "The House could vote to strip the funding [for amnesty] — the Democrats and the Senate will not.
"It'll be the same impasse we had over Obamacare and the government shutdown, and nothing good will come from it."
But he said the midterm rout of Democrats will be felt once the 114th Congress convenes just after the new year, with Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House. They will hold one of their largest-ever House majorities.
"In January, we'll have a great deal of power, and we should use every bit of it through the appropriations process to limit funds and to direct [Obama] with the purse," he said. "We will do that beginning January."
He also allowed for the possibility that the president's actions now won't "ruin any chance" of a deal on immigration indefinitely.
"Whether or not [executive amnesty] poisons the well as far as immigration goes, we will pass an immigration reform," Paul said of the next Congress. "For example, giving more work visas and more entry into our country for people who have masters in math and Ph.D.s in computer science.
"That has a 75-80 percent approval in the House. It passed in the Republican House last year.
"We will pass that in the House and the Senate, send that to the president — it won't be everything he wants, but it's part of immigration reform — and defy him to veto it," he said. "We will see."
Paul said the president's "grab for power" doesn't stop at immigration: He's also selectively enforced the Affordable Care Act, and gone to war with the Islamic State without congressional authorization for use of military force.
"When people ask me what's the worst thing he's done, is it Obamacare? Immigration reform? Usurping war authority? No, it's a whole idea that he could be destroying the concept of the separation of powers," said Paul.
"We will fight him on this and he, hopefully, will rue the day that he decided to take on this power that is not his."