Ron Paul, who is passing up a Donald Trump-moderated U.S. presidential debate, said Sunday he doesn't understand why candidates are expected to kowtow to Trump.
Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" news program, the Republican Texas congressman, who ranks second behind Newt Gingrich in the latest GOP presidential candidates poll in Iowa, said he doesn't understand Trump's popularity and thinks the Republican Party is hurting itself by having the flamboyant reality TV show performer -- who toyed with the idea of running for president himself this year -- moderate a Dec. 27 GOP presidential debate in Des Moines, just ahead of the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.
"I don't understand the marching to his office. I mean I didn't know that he had an ability to lay on hands, you know, and anoint people," Paul said. "But I have to just do my thing.
"But evidently, you know, he probably doesn't like my position on the federal reserve. You know, easy credit for developers and investors, you know they like easy credit and they like the federal reserve and they like that for bailing out. So I don't know, maybe deep down philosophic. And of course his position on China was quite different. So I think it is philosophic and probably his personality that doesn't like to be challenged."
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has been having a hard time getting traction in the polls for her GOP candidacy for president, told the CNN news show she still has time to pull more supporters to her camp before the caucuses. She also continued to position herself as the candidate most representative of Tea Party movement supporters.
"If you look at, for instance, both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, both of them have supported the essence of Obamacare. That's not something that the Tea Party supports," Bachmann said. "And of all the candidates in the race, I'm the one that's actually going to get rid of it as president of the United States, and the same thing with the global warming initiatives.
"Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney also supported the global warming initiatives. That's not something that the Tea Party stands for -- or the Wall Street bailout. I'm the one who opposed the Wall Street bailout."
If she wins the GOP nomination, she said, "I'm the consistent conservative who will shred [Democratic President] Barack Obama's policies in the debates."