Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he would vote for Chris Christie should the outspoken New Jersey governor win the 2016 Republican nomination for president.
"I've always been a Republican, supported the Republican nominee, and don't plan on changing it anytime soon," Paul told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV when asked if he would back Christie.
"Yeah. Take it exactly how I said it. I've always supported the Republican nominee and don't plan on doing otherwise."
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Paul's olive branch comes a month after a lively dustup between the charismatic GOP lawmakers.
In July, Christie said libertarians such as Paul are "very dangerous" to national security. Paul then ripped Christie for a "gimme, gimme, gimme" attitude toward disaster aid in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.
Paul's potential support of Christie flies in the face of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who said he would not support the Garden State's top lawmaker in a bid for the White House.
Meanwhile, Rand Paul is continuing to mull his own possible run in 2016.
"I've been traveling some, a lot in Kentucky but also around the United States, talking about how we can grow the Republican Party to be big enough to be competitive nationally," he said.
"Whether that winds up in me running for national office, we probably won't know for at least about a year."
Paul said he believes the Republican Party can grow substantially and include more diversity — a message he is promoting.
"[We'll say] this is how we think the Republican Party could be bigger, this is how we're going to attract more youth vote, this is how we can attract more African American, Latino, Asian American, Jewish American — how we can become a party that looks more like and represents more of a broad section of America," he said.
"If we can demonstrate that, that may be something that Republicans will begin to say, hey, we need to embrace some of these libertarian conservatives because their ideas may broaden our base."
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