Friday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recounted his encounter with White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing earlier in the week.
The Kentucky Republican asked Fauci to justify double-masking and quantify the threat of a new variant of COVID-19 that backs up these concerns.
Paul insisted Fauci had been unable to, which he concluded should be a responsibility of government when it imposes restrictions on its population.
“There was no scientific evidence presented. There was Dr. Fauci’s opinion, his conjecture, that someday there might be a variant that escapes the control of the vaccine and becomes a pandemic and hospitalizes and kills people, but there’s no evidence that it has happened. He thinks it might happen, so you need to wear the mask until he is sure that things that might happen are not going to happen. But see, the thing is Dr. Fauci is very blasé and unconcerned about liberty, but I think the burden should be on the government to prove it. If they want to dictate mine and your behavior, the burden is on them to present the evidence.”
“So I said, is there evidence that some new variant, some new strain of COVID is now hospitalizing and killing hundreds or even thousands of people in the United States?” Paul continued. “And the evidence is zero. So I think the government when they tell you something like you should be six feet apart, or three feet apart — if they’re going to mandate this behavior that you can’t have anybody in the booth next to you in the restaurant when they mandate these behaviors, it’s incumbent upon them, the burden should be they have to show us the proof. There is no proof that when you’ve been vaccinated, or when you’ve gotten the disease naturally, that you are spreading it. If there were, it would be all over the news. There are no news reports and no scientific studies saying that after vaccination, that there’s some sort of widespread contagion that people vaccinated are spreading the disease. It’s just not true.”
“What Fauci won’t tell you is that he is telling you a noble lie,” he added. “He’s lying to you because he doesn’t think we’re smart enough to make decisions. His fear is that if the vaccinated quit wearing the mask, the unvaccinated will say, ‘What the hell, I’m not wearing a mask either.’ So he lies to you to say, oh, the mask makes a difference. When in reality, he knows better. He is wearing two masks for theater. It is complete theater. He is immune. He knows he’s not going to get it, but he is not being honest with the American public.”
Paul offered details about his own experience at the gym with a woman upset he did not have a mask on while using the treadmill.
“One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom,” he said. “They need to study and scientific proof to show us why we shouldn’t have freedom. I shouldn’t have to prove that I want to be free and I want to be left alone in order to breathe the air. I was on the treadmill the other day, and some Karen goes and tells the people he is on a treadmill. He is running without a mask. I mean, for goodness sakes, is this the world we’re going to live in where everybody is reporting everyone, and the Gestapo is going to come because – – and arrest you like this poor woman?”
“I mean, my goodness, they need to present the proof,” Paul added. “The burden should be on the government, show us that someone that’s been vaccinated or that significant numbers of those who are vaccinated are getting it again — being hospitalized and dying or spreading it, instead of the conjecture of Anthony Fauci who says, someday you might. So my response to him was, well, someday the Spanish flu might come back. So maybe we should always wear a mask because this isn’t as bad as the Spanish flu. It’s a lot less deadly. But someday, the Spanish flu is going to come back. So why should we not just wear masks all the time until we die?”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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