The Black Lives Matter movement should change its name, Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul has advised.  “I think they should change their name maybe – if they were All Lives Matter, or Innocent Lives Matter,” Paul said, in response to a question from Fox News host Sean Hannity about accusations that the Kentucky senator had been “talking down” the movement, which campaigns against police violence towards African Americans.  Paul went on to say that he had appeared with members of the congressional black caucus and visited Howard University, the historic African American college, and the South Side of Chicago to talk about criminal justice.  “I am about justice, and frankly I think a lot of poor people in our country, and many African Americans, are trapped in this war on drugs, and I want to change it,” Paul said.  “But commandeering the microphone, and bullying people, and pushing people out of the way – I think that really isn’t a way to get their message across.”  Activists with Black Lives Matter have sought to advance their message by raising their voices at appearances by presidential candidates including Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton.  After protesters took over a stage where he was speaking last month, O’Malley said “black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter”. He was met with boos and later apologized and said he did not mean to minimize the activists’ cause.  On a stage in Seattle earlier this month, Sanders surrendered his microphone to activists, in an episode that drew quick ridicule from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who said: “I would never give up my microphone; I thought that was disgusting.”  Paul echoed that criticism of the protesters in his Hannity show appearance, which his campaign posted on YouTube.  “Having people take the microphone – they need to go somewhere else, and they need to rent their own microphone,” Paul said.  The Black Lives Matter movement grew out of street protests and rallies that followed the killing across the country last summer by police of African-Americans including Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri.  Paul has been one of the most consistent advocates for criminal justice reform in Congress, calling for decriminalizing drugs, releasing nonviolent offenders from prisons and jails and changing mandatory sentencing guidelines.  Paul was criticized by activists last summer after seeming to deprecate the city of Baltimore during protests there over the killing of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man, while in police custody.  “It’s depressing, it’s sad, it’s scary,” Paul said of violence in the city. “I came through the train on Baltimore last night; I’m glad the train didn’t stop.”
Republican presidential candidate suggests All or Innocent Lives Matter while responding on Fox News to claims he has been ‘talking down’ the movement