Kentucky senator on political violence, Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning from Congress and more

(CBS, KYMA) - Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about political violence.

President Donald Trump posted to social media over the weekend calling for the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who urged service members and intelligence officials to disobey orders issued by the Trump Administration.

In the post, President Trump said in part, "It was sedition at the highest level, and sedition is a major crime."

When asked if the president is holding himself to the same standard that he asked others when it comes to dialing back dangerous rhetoric after the president survived two attempts on his life, and following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Sen. Paul said:

"You know, everybody knows that the President is famous for his unfiltered social media. But if you take at face value the idea that calling your opponents traitors and then specifically saying that it warrants the death penalty is reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible, there are a number of other ways to describe it, but it's not something that is helping the country heal wounds. I think it stirs things up and really, I think we can do better."

During the interview, Brennan and Paul talked about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announcing she is resigning from Congress in January.

This prompted Brennan to ask Paul if he thinks there is room in the Republican Party to disagree with the president, to which Paul said:

"I think it's important that we have independent voices. So, I'm sad to see her voice go away, or potentially go away. I think that she brought up something in the last week or so that was very important. What is the Republican plan for health care? So, I've engaged the President on this, and I'm putting forward my own plan. But in my plan, what it allows for is people to buy their insurance through a collective. Basically to buy their insurance through Costco or Sam's Club or Amazon. And mine is the only plan out there that would actually drive prices down. But that's what an independent voice will help in our country. Independent voice within the Republican caucus, not to see things always inside the box, but to think of some out of the box solutions. So, I think independent voices are important in the Republican Party."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Paul talked about the boat strikes near Venezuela, with Brennan saying the Trump Administration will officially designate the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, which they say is linked to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Monday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it gives the Trump Administration new tools, and nothing is militarily on or off the table.

This led Brennan to ask the senator what will legally change Monday, and what will become possible, and Paul said:

"I think by doing this, they're pretending as if we are at war. They're pretending as if they've gotten some imprimatur to do what they want. When you have war, the rules of engagement are lessened. So, for example, we normally don't shoot boats that we suspect of being drug dealers. In fact, if the Coast Guard tomorrow started shooting all vessels that are off of Miami or off of San Diego, about one in four of the vessels that they normally board doesn't have drugs. So it actually would be unlawful if the Coast Guard started blowing up boats. But for some reason they say, 'Oh, we're at war off the coast of Venezuela.' And so it's different rule of engagement. It's one of war. But you know, Senator Kaine and I brought this up, and we said, 'If it's war, let's declare it as war. Let's have this discussion. Is it war or not?' And the administration refused that. They want to have it both ways. They want to say, Oh, we can just say these people are terrorists, are narco-terrorists, so we can blow them up. But it's extraordinary that when some of them survive, they pluck them out of the water. They don't prosecute them for drugs. They don't collect drugs. They don't tell us if they were armed or not. They just send them back to their country, most of the time, not being Venezuela. They've sent one back to Colombia and one back to Ecuador, but nobody's making any pretense of even interviewing them to find out who's selling you the drugs. Maybe we could find out who the kingpins are if they're involved in the drug trade. Not a word. And I've been given zero, not one briefing, because I'm skeptical of what they're doing. They don't brief me or the general Senate at all. A few hand selected people may have gotten a briefing, but I have not been invited to any briefings on Venezuela."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Paul, click here.