Republican Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, said he was attacked during an encounter with protesters early Friday while walking with his wife from the White House following President Trump’s closing speech at the Republican National Convention. However, video posted online does not appear to show Paul or his wife being touched by any protesters.
“Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House,” Paul tweeted, while thanking the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for “literally saving our lives.”
Video uploaded to Twitter by a bystander showed Paul and his wife, Kelley Paul, being escorted by police through a crowd of protesters following the events at the White House.
Some officers can be heard shouting “move back” at the crowd of protesters as they chanted for the senator to “say her name,” a common refrain from demonstrators regarding the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Paul’s home state of Kentucky.
During an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Paul said that he and his wife were unharmed but said protesters were threatening to kill them.
“They were yelling threats, they were trying to push the police over to get to me, they were grabbing at us,” Paul said.
When asked by host Steve Doocy to elaborate on the alleged threats, Paul said protesters threatened to “‘eff you up’ and kill you.”
“I truly believe this with every fiber of my being — had they gotten at us, they would have gotten us to the ground, we might not have been killed, we might just have been injured by being kicked in the head or kicked in the stomach until we were senseless,” Paul said.
But the video shows that he was never threatened or attacked.
The senator also claimed that the protesters possibly came from out of state and were “paid to be anarchists.”
Rand Paul just got chased by a crowd back to his hotel, after leaving the White House from Trump’s Republican Party Nomination #DC #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/h1kPcZG1jh
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 28, 2020