Rand Paul on vaccines, net neutrality and running for president

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, had another chance to defend his recent comments about vaccinations Thursday, although he wasn't necessarily hoping to revisit the topic.

"Thanks for not getting into vaccines, I'm glad we agreed beforehand not to get into vaccines," Paul said to his interviewer, TechCruch's Michael Arrington, who asked Paul about vaccines at the top of his Q&A.

The vaccine debate has "an easy answer," Paul said, but "when I gave the easy answer people went crazy, because they didn't understand what the debate was about. I'm not promoting any change to vaccine law, the current vaccine law has religious exemptions and philosophic exemptions, so those who jumped all over on me on this need to stand up and say what they're for. They asked the president, 'Are you for a new federal law holding people down and vaccinating them?' He's not, neither is anybody else who's been giving me a lot of grief over this, and neither am I for changing the rules either."

Paul's comments came at a gathering of tech-minded conservatives and Libertarians, the Reboot Congress conference, so naturally, he was also asked about the impending open internet rules. Paul opposes FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's net neutrality plan and argued that banning paid prioritization -- allowing companies to pay for faster internet delivery speed -- might not be such a great idea.

"So this is an economic fact, that bulk supply, bulk contracts get different contracts. The interesting thing though is, without any regulation for 20 years on the internet, with all the fear that there might be some bulk pricing, i think there's very little evidence that it exists today."

And Paul was forthright where he is on running for president. "I would say I'm about as direct as anybody on this. We are thinking very strongly about it, we do travel everywhere with the intention of putting the message out to see if it resonates," he said.