Sen. Rand Paul Blasts Trump Over Revoked Invite To White House Picnic

Habeas corpus is "one most fundamental rights we have," Paul said, adding "they don’t like hearing me say stuff like that, and so they want to quiet me down."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday slammed President Donald Trump for uninviting him and his family from the White House picnic.

Paul has opposed the Trump administration’s decision to “actively” seek to suspend habeas corpus. Habeas corpus — the constitutional freedom that translates to “you should have the body” in Latin — ensures that detained individuals, whether or not they are citizens, are able to physically appear in front of a judge.

“I think I’m the first senator in the history of the United States to be uninvited to the White House picnic,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday. “I just find this incredibly petty. I mean — I have been, I think, nothing but polite to the president.”

The picnic is an annual event held by the White House on the South Lawn, which members from both aisles of Congress typically attend.

“They’ve decided they want to declare war on my family and exclude us from the White House, and I just think it’s incredibly petty,” Paul added on Wednesday, saying that White House staffers are “running sort of a paid influencer campaign against me for two weeks on Twitter.”