In yet another interview seeking to clarify his position, Rand Paul tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he would have voted for the Civil Rights Act and that racial discrimination was "an overriding problem in the South so big that it did require federal intervention in the '60s."

Here's the relevant portion of the transcript:

BLITZER: All right, I want to give you a chance to explain, because there's a lot of confusion right now about precisely where you stand.
I'll ask you a simple question. If you had been a member of the Senate or the House back in 1964, would you have voted yea or nay for the Civil Rights Act?

PAUL: Yes. I would have voted yes.

BLITZER: So why is there all this confusion emerging right now?

Give me your analysis, because you've had to issue a statement today. There have been interviews on NPR yesterday and MSNBC.

Tell us what's going on.

PAUL: Well, first of all, Wolf, I thought I was supposed to get a honeymoon. When does my honeymoon start, you know, after my victory?

BLITZER: There's no such thing in politics, Dr. Paul.

PAUL: No such thing. I think you're right.

I think what troubles me is that the news cycle has gotten out of control. I mean for several hours on a major news network yesterday, they reported repeatedly that I was for repealing the Civil Rights Act.
That is not only not true, never been my position, but is an out and out lie and they repeated it all day long.

It started with my Democrat opponent asserting this, but has never been my position.

BLITZER: You support that -- because the argument was -- the argument was made that you support the Civil Rights Act in terms of federal -- in terms of government responsibility, there should be no racism or segregation. But if there's a private club or a restaurant where they don't want to serve African-Americans, as abhorrent as that is, you think that they have a ri -- you -- you suggested -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- they would have a right to do that.

PAUL: Well, what I did suggest was that it was a stain on the history of the South and of our country. But, you know, we desegregated in 1840 in Boston. William Lloyd Garrison was up there with Frederick Douglas being thrown off trains and going through what happened in the 1960s in 1840 in Boston.

So I think it is a stain on our history and something that I am sad for and something that, if I had been alive at the time, would hope that I would have been there marching with Martin Luther King.

One of our biggest county coordinators was there with Martin Luther King, attended the rallies in D.C. and considers himself to be a civil rights activist and he takes it as a personal insult that people will say that our movement doesn't believe in civil rights. So I think it's...

BLITZER: But I just want to be precise on this...

PAUL: -- politically motivated...

BLITZER: Dr. Paul, I just want to be precise, did Woolworth -- Woolworth, the department store, have a right, at their lunch counters, to segregate blacks and whites?

PAUL: I think that there was an overriding problem in the South so big that it did require federal intervention in the '60s. And it stems from things that I said, you know, had been going on, really, 120 years too long. And the Southern states weren't correcting it. And I think there was a need for federal intervention (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: All right. So you clarified. You would have voted yea.
You would have voted yes in favor of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

PAUL: Yes.

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