It's hard to see a pathway to the Presidency that involves alienating every major news outlet on the planet, but Rand Paul is certainly trying to forge one.
Guardian reporter Paul Lewis was asking the Kentucky Republican and 2016 Republican presidential candidate about criminal justice reform.
"One more question for you, sorry we have to sometimes be a bit forceful, when you stand for president you get pressed and questioned and you understand that," Lewis said, before mentioning that at Paul's campaign launch on Tuesday he got an enthusiastic response to his calls for criminal justice reform.
"You're standing for the Republican nomination, all the research shows that Republicans, white Republicans who will determine the outcome of this race, don't think criminal law is applied in an unfair way, so how are you going to win the nomination with this..." Lewis asked before being cut off by Paul.
"I think your premise is incorrect," Paul said. "I think I can take that message into a white Evangelical church anywhere in Iowa and give the exact same speech and be received well."
Lewis then tried to quote a recent Washington Post and ABC poll, before Paul pointed at him, looked at his staff, said something unintelligible and walked out.
Lewis got back in front of the camera to explain what happened when the lights in the room were turned off.
"So we got that interview cut off maybe it was because I was about to push him on the specific, oh the lights are off in fact, we're being told to go," Lewis said. "But the specifics of why Republicans, most of them don't think that criminal law is applied [unequally], two in three white Republicans say that according to a poll last week, would've been great to say that to Sen. Paul, the interview was cut short, but that's periscope."
In classic Republican fashion, Paul blamed CNN for turning the lights out and new technology for the cut video feed.
Hey, that's a risk you take when you want to be the cutting-edge candidate using new media that hasn't been tested under pressure. Sort of like the candidate himself without the cutting-edge part.
