Ron Paul blasts back at Santorum after being called ‘disgusting’

Ron Paul blasted back at Rick Santorum, who referred to the Texas congressman as “disgusting” earlier in the day, deriding the former Pennsylvania senator as “liberal” and calling the incident “not a very nice thing.”

“I would say that’s not a very nice thing to do,” Paul said during an interview Tuesday on Fox News. “I think he wants to deflect away from some of the charges made against him about having been a supporter of Arlen Specter — and he was a pretty liberal senator, he supported prescription drug programs, and No Child Left Behind, and voted for all of the foreign aid, so I would say he ought to be talking about that rather than calling me names.”

Santorum reportedly called Paul “disgusting” to Fox News reporters after appearing on the network’s morning show earlier Tuesday.

Paul and Santorum are both attempting to paint themselves as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucus, but deep ideological differences — especially on foreign policy — have sharply divided the Republican competitors.

Earlier this weekend, Santorum blasted Paul for negative robo-calling and his foreign policy platform.

“Just on the issue of commander in chief, he comes from the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party, which is not a place where I’d want my commander in chief to be,” Santorum said on MSNBC. “The problem is Barack Obama in his second term, I fear, would not be much better.”

The Paul campaign, meanwhile, touted Tuesday the endorsement of one of Santorum’s nephews.

“Santorum’s 19-year-old nephew John Garver writes in the Daily Caller all about how his uncle’s longstanding, misplaced insecurities cause him to doubt how economic and civil liberties will help America reach its potential — if those like Santorum just step aside and permit them to,” the Paul campaign wrote in a news release.

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