Rick Santorum: Rand Paul's Voting Record at Odd With Words

The voting record of Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is at odds with his comments that he is not an isolationist, fellow Republican and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"During the last campaign, when he was campaigning with his father, he said Iran with a nuclear weapon is one nuclear weapon. It's not a problem for America," Santorum said Tuesday. "On a sanctions vote in the United States Senate, he was the singular vote. One person voted against sanctions, and that was Rand Paul."

In addition, Santorum said Paul "authored a budget that wiped out every dollar of aid to Israel," even though he had said recently in Iowa "he never opposed aid to Israel."

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"He said it's good for Israel that they become a welfare state by American support. But, then he went to Iowa when Israel was under attack from Hamas and said, 'No, no I never did that,'" Santorum said.

Paul told Fox News on Sept. 3 that he isn't "an isolationist nor an interventionist," and maintained "America should have a strong national defense." Santorum countered that Paul is "to the left of pretty much everybody."

Santorum said there is a debate going on "within the Republican Party about what kind of defense policy we should have, what kind of international policy we should have." While the country is "war weary," he said arguments for increased military involvement in other countries have not been well made.

"Candidly, I don't think we've had very good leadership of laying out the reason why we need to be engaged in the international arena," Santorum said.

As President Barack Obama contemplates a strategy for dealing with terrorist threats by the Islamic State (ISIS), Santorum said the United States is "seeing the results of not being engaged," and "simply walking away from problems." Yet, he said Americans do not have an understanding of "what engagement should look like."

"There is a very constructive engagement policy that I think both parties have embraced in the past and that we really need to focus on and explain to the American public what that means," he said.

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