Sen. Rand Paul has doubled down on his assertion that National Institute of Health director Anthony Fauci should be fired.
QUICK FACTS:
- Sen Rand Paul called for Dr. Anthony Fauci who is the director of the National Institute of Health and adviser to President Joe Biden to be fired on Wednesday, calling the White House medical advisor a “menace,” according to The Daily Wire.
- Paul said during an interview with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on “America’s Newsroom” that his feud with Fauci was personal because the NIH director was “going after” scientists that disagree with him.
- The two doctors clashed earlier this week in a hearing about COVID-19 protocols and other issues surrounding Fauci’s official duties.
- During the congressional hearing, Fauci slammed Paul for his efforts to raise money to get the NIH director fired, saying Paul was using his career for personal gain.
- When questioned about it, Paul said that Fauci was avoiding answering the question of why he was smearing other medical and scientific professionals who disagreed with his opinions about coronavirus.
- Paul also said that Fauci has been repeatedly incorrect and has worked to cover up the origins of the novel coronavirus, which is widely believed to be a lab partially funded by the NIH.
WHAT PAUL SAID:
- “He makes over $400,000 a year to go after specific scientists, denigrate them, smear them, call them fringe. The three scientists he went after work at Stanford, Harvard and Oxford.”
- “Everything he said has been incorrect. And I think he is part of the problem. Even from the very beginning the fact that this virus came from a lab in Wuhan he has denied it and worked to cover it up and denigrated anybody who raises this question as a conspiracy theorist.
- “So yes, he is a partisan politician and he has no place in any objective role over the pandemic and yeah, it’s a political thing. Whoever wins the election will make the decision whether he stays or goes or whether we investigate where the virus came from in the beginning.”
BACKGROUND:
- Paul and Fauci have clashed repeatedly since the start of the pandemic with Paul insisting that Fauci is not looking out for the best interest of the country.
- Paul also said that he believed due to recent evidence outlined in The Daily Mail that there was a “90 to 10” percent chance that the virus came from the Wuhan, China lab that receive NIH funding.
- Fauci has consistently denied claims by Paul that the lab was responsible, despite new evidence from leading experts that the lab was “likely” the cause of the viral outbreak.
