Sen. Rand Paul was in the middle of one of his trademark takedowns of the “right-wing hawks” in his party who “have never met a war they didn’t want to get involved in,” when he suddenly paused and began grinning.

“There was a funny article the other day in Mother Jones — did you see it? About one of my colleagues?” he asked.

He was trying to do the polite, senatorial thing by not mentioning his “colleague” by name. But when his vague prompt was met with a blank look during an interview with BuzzFeed, he scrapped the pretense of diplomacy and charged forward.