Sen. Rand Paul talks Liz Cheney, Dr. Fauci, infrastructure bill
LEXI: “Do you think Liz Cheney should have been ousted from her position as GOP Conference Chair, yes or no?”
SEN. PAUL: “I think Liz Cheney was doing a poor job and I’m glad she’s no longer in leadership. I think her continual criticism of President Trump was dwelling on the past and unhelpful for the party.”
LEXI: “Now, let’s talk about you and Dr. Fauci’s exchange a couple of days ago. Why do you think the U.S. is funding gain of fund research? You said Dr. Fauci was cited in one of the research articles, yet he denied it, why do you think he’s denying it?”
SEN. PAUL: “Well he has a long history of supporting gain of function research. This is a research where they take an animal virus that doesn’t normally infect humans and they juice it up and make it into a supervirus that can infect humans. I think it’s very dangerous if they create these superviruses that could get out to the public. I don’t know that Covid came from that Wuhan lab in China but there’s a possibility it did. And we have 11 labs in the United States that are creating superviruses. I think we should have a debate and a discussion whether the government should be encouraging the creation of viruses that don’t occur in nature that are tailor made to do damage in humans. I think that’s incredibly dangerous, I think it’s foolish and we should stop it. Dr. Fauci has been on record on many occasions as supporting this kind of research and I think he really didn’t quite tell the entire truth about Wuhan. We have an article written by the lead scientist in Wuhan, her name is Dr. Shi. And in the article, at the end of the article, she thanks Dr. Fauci for funding her research. We also have scientists who have looked at the paper and say you know what that paper is gain of function research, they were creating superviruses. So there really is something that we have to have a full discussion about. 3 million people have died from the pandemic. We ought to be curious as to where the pandemic came from and if it could’ve possibly come from a lab.”
LEXI: “Moving on to the new revised infrastructure bill, what parts do you agree with? And what parts do you disagree with?”
SEN. PAUL: “I think there ought to be some bipartisan support for roads and bridges and infrastructure. And in the past there have been. I’m still hopeful that President Biden will agree to work with Republicans and get a bipartisan bill. If we do a bipartisan bill it ought to be paid for though. Republicans don’t want to borrow trillions of dollars because they think the pressure of borrowing from so much will cause inflation and rising prices. We also need to define infrastructure very carefully. I think roads and bridges are infrastructure, I think the rivers, dams and locks are infrastructure. But I don’t think, people are saying slavery, reparations for slavery is infrastructure is infrastructure or that free child care is infrastructure but those are bizarre notions that I don’t think any regular person would say is infrastructure. So if we can agree what infrastructure is, how it will be paid for, I think a bipartisan approach would be much better than what the Democrats are currently trying to do.”
LEXI: “And focusing on your goals with your position, you’ve had a lot of recent travel throughout the state of Kentucky, can you talk about that and what your goals are right now?”
RAND PAUL: “As we’ve traveled around Kentucky, we’ve visited about 15 cities last week. We’re finding that people are anxious and eager to open the economy. They want Governor Beshear to end the mandates, the mandates are getting in the way. The infections have plummeted down, most people I meet are vaccinated, people are happy to be outside again, people are out enjoying normal life. But there’s still restrictions on hotels and restaurants that are making it hard for them to make a living. So most people are saying, Governor Beshear, get rid of all your rules. Other people are saying they want to expand their business but they can’t find workers. They’re concerned that the federal government has made the wage for not working higher than the wage for working for many people. So a lot of people are being discouraged to work and a lot of businesses can’t get fully up and running. Have you seen some of the signs on the internet of someone going into McDonald’s and there’s a sign taped to the wall saying hey be patient with us there’s only two of us today because we can’t find anybody to work. That’s kind of discouraging because no matter what your work is, it’s important, it’s important to your self esteem and how you feel about yourself. We need to encourage work and not encourage idleness.
