Rep. Mike Lawler on Wednesday said he was accosted by the son of Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday night with a 10-minute “reprehensible” antisemitic rant.
The New York Republican told reporters the interaction occurred when he was on his way to a restaurant with at least one journalist. He said William Paul approached him and shouted at him and said he would blame “your people” if Rep. Thomas Massie loses his reelection bid.
“My people?” Lawler asked.
“Yeah, you Jews,” Paul replied.
Lawler said he told Paul that he isn’t Jewish and the senator’s son apologized before launched into an antisemitic diatribe.
“At one point, he said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die. And I think that’s fucking disgusting,” Lawler said.
The conversation, he said, ended soon thereafter, with Paul flipping him off and tripping on his way out the door.
In a post to X late Wednesday afternoon, Paul said he “had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am.”
“I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem,” he added. A spokesperson for Sen. Rand Paul did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I think it speaks to a larger issue, obviously, in society and what we’re seeing among young people and what we see online, and this is the level of hatred and vitriol, frankly, that some of my Jewish colleagues experience, that many of my constituents experience,” said Lawler.
Lawler represents New York’s 17th Congressional District, which is home to about 90,000 Jews, or about 12 percent of the district’s population.
“I’m not going to stop standing up for my constituents. I’m not going to stop standing up for the Judeo-Christian values that are at the core of our nation, our Constitution, our rule of law,” he said.
