Trump: 'Of Course' Paul Is Invited to White House Picnic

UPDATE Jun 12, 2025 9:49 AM CDT

President Trump denied Thursday that Republican Sen. Rand Paul had been disinvited from the White House congressional picnic. "Of course Senator Rand Paul and his beautiful wife and family are invited to the BIG White House Party tonight," Trump said in a Truth Social post. "He's the toughest vote in the history of the U.S. Senate, but why wouldn't he be? Besides, it gives me more time to get his Vote on the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill." GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, another critic of the bill, said he'd also been excluded from the Thursday evening event, the Hill reports. "Incredibly petty & shortsighted of Trump's staff to exclude Republicans from the annual White House picnic while inviting Pelosi and every Democrat," he said in a post on X. Trump's post didn't mention Massie.

Jun 12, 2025 1:00 AM CDT

Sen. Rand Paul says his family has been disinvited from the White House congressional picnic, a move he attributes to his opposition to President Trump's budget bill. Paul told reporters Wednesday he learned of the exclusion when he tried to pick up tickets for himself, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and infant grandson, CBS News reports. "I think I'm the first senator in the history of the United States to be uninvited to the White House picnic," Paul said, adding that every other Democrat and Republican lawmaker is still welcome at Thursday's event.

Paul, who has criticized the administration's budget package over its plan to raise the debt ceiling, called the decision "incredibly petty" and said he received no explanation. He also said, per CNN, that he's not sure the president himself is behind the move or whether the decision was made by the "petty staffers who have been running a sort of a paid influencer campaign against me for two weeks on Twitter." The senator argued that his concerns are based on the national debt, not personal animosity, and said the disinvitation has diminished his respect for Trump.

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Other Republicans have also voiced concerns about the budget bill, but it's unclear if any other lawmakers have had their invitations revoked. While blasting the White House move, Paul also appeared to blast a top White House aide with what the Hill and other outlets took as a reference to Stephen Miller: "The same people that are directing this campaign [against me] are the same people that casually would throw out parts of the Constitution and suspend habeas corpus," Paul said. "So I think what it tells [is] that they don't like hearing me say stuff like that, and so they want to quiet me down. And it hasn't worked, and so they're going to try to attack me. They're going to try to destroy me in other ways, and then do petty little things like social occasions or whatever." (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)