Rand Paul's Awkward GOP Debate Tweet

While the top seven GOP presidential candidates debated economic, domestic, and international policy issues in South Carolina Thursday night, Rand Paul was... well, somewhere else. Because of his dwindling poll numbers, the Kentucky senator didn't qualify for Fox Business Network's primetime debate, and he opted out of participating in the earlier second-tier candidate forum to host a "Rand Rally" from Twitter's offices and answer voters' questions directly. In the middle of the televised event though, Paul awkwardly inserted himself into the GOP debate he chose to boycott.

Marco Rubio, who was actually in the debate, briefly mentioned Paul's Senate budget bill that cut defense spending while criticizing Ted Cruz's voting record on defense bills, saying that it's the only federal budget Cruz ever voted for. After his name came up, Paul tweeted: "I heard @marcorubio mentioned me in the #GOPDebate tonight. Don't I get 30 seconds to respond?" I'm sorry Paul, but those rules only apply to the candidates who A) qualified for the debate and B) showed up. Hillary Clinton didn't get 30 seconds to respond every time her name was mentioned, mostly because she would have been talking endlessly if that were how it worked.

Paul obviously wanted to be involved in the debate, otherwise he wouldn't have desperately asked the World Wide Web if he could respond to Rubio. Maybe next time, Paul.