Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he will not set himself on fire to compete with Donald Trump for attention.
"Yeah, I'm drawing the line at self-immolation, none of us are going to set ourselves on fire," Paul said on Boston Herald Radio last week.
Paul destroyed the tax code in various videos he released last week in which he set it on fire, put it in a wood chipper, and used a chainsaw.
"We set the tax code on fire, but no, you're right," Paul said, adding that he made the various viral videos in hopes of spreading his message in a way that would resonate with people who aren't glued to cable news.
"I mean, there is a -- it is getting through," said Paul. "But also one of the reasons, you know, we try to do things in a visual way is that, you know, I ask my kids, I said, 'Do you ever watch news channels?' and they've never watched the news channel, but if they see something interesting on the internet they'll pass it around to their friends."
"And so I think our visual way of talking about how the tax code is injuring American jobs and sending companies overseas, I think will resonate. And we do pretty well on our social media. You know, we have over 2 million people on Facebook — nearly a million on Twitter — and so we try to get things out really beyond sort of some of the traditional media venues."