“I take it as an insult, and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting,” Paul said on ABC’s This Week. “I have never intentionally done so and like I say, ‘If dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, it’d be a duel challenge.’”

Since the “footnote police have really been dogging” him lately, Paul said he would raise his standards when it comes to sourcing his works, but clarified that many of his speeches are extemporaneous, such as his 13-hour filibuster earlier this year. He argued that there may be a degree of “nitpicking” in evaluating how references are presented in the spoken word versus written academic works.