President-elect Donald Trump "viscerally" understands Americans and "knows what's going on," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — who was once a Trump foe during the Republican primary season — told Newsmax TV.
During an appearance on Wednesday's "Newsmax Prime," Paul told host J.D. Hayworth Trump is on the same page with Republicans — and the American people — regarding a variety of issues.
"The one thing that I think about Donald Trump is that I think he viscerally gets the nation," Paul said. "A lot of people who have been left out by the elites on either coast, flyover country where I live in Kentucky, he sort of gets us and just immediately knows what's going on."
Paul, who has represented Kentucky in the Senate since 2011, added the allegations leveled at Trump in a dossier made public Tuesday are likely not true.
"I think the No. 1 thing we should be examining and trying to discover is who in the Intelligence Committee or who in the Obama White House leaked this type of information?" Paul asked of the dossier that alleged Trump has ties with Russia.
"To release the information to the public that in all likelihood is not true and the president-elect is saying is not true . . . the crime here is somebody released this private, scurrilous information that is in all likelihood not true, but there has been a crime committed: the crime is releasing private information."
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Paul was one of 17 people in the crowded Republican primary field before he bowed out of the race early last February. Trump singled him out on several occasions during debates.
In an interview with Newsmax TV in October 2015, Paul called Trump "polarizing" and said Trump would be "the largest loser of any candidate ever in the history of the country" if he were to win the GOP's nomination, which he eventually did en route to winning the presidency.
In Wednesday's interview, Paul used the example of repealing Obamacare as a way to show his feelings about the real estate mogul have changed.
"He instinctively gets that you have to replace at the same time, that the American people want a replacement, they want something that makes it easier for them to get insurance and less expensive," Paul said. "The two things that Obamacare didn't do, they actually still want. Easier to get insurance and less expensive."
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