Rand Paul blasts Fauci for self-righteous 'arrogance' seen in 'worst type of dictator'

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul predicted that the Democratic Party will lose the House and Senate in the midterms over their handling of COVID-19 mandates such as masking on planes.

Paul was asked about the Biden administration seeking to overturn a federal judge's decision to eliminate the mask requirement on planes.

"I suspect this will lead to the wipeout of the Democrats in both the House and the Senate because, look, do they want to go against 97% of us getting on planes and force 97% of the public, you know, to be back wearing a mask?" Paul said in an interview on the "Just the News, Not Noise" television program.

"But you have to also realize the arrogance of people like Dr. Fauci," he continued. "His comment the other day is alarming, and we should emphasize this until everybody knows it. He said that the courts have no business overturning his mandates, the courts have no business reviewing his mandates. Another way of saying that is, you know, the courts adjudicate the Constitution, he's saying the Constitution has no business looking at the mandates that he puts on individual or free choice. This is alarmingly arrogant. This is something we've never ever seen. He should be you know, rousted from public debate." 

Paul excoriated Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for what he said were traits of arrogance and self-righteousness characteristic of the worst sort of dictators. 

"Public opinion should rebuke a person who doesn't respect the courts, doesn't respect the Constitution and doesn't respect the individual and has such arrogance that he believes he is the science and that if you disrespect him or you question his edict, you're questioning science," Paul said. "That is an arrogance we have never ever seen but that is an arrogance, this surety of your moral rightness, that's the worst type of dictator to get — the one who actually believes that they are somehow morally superior to the rest of us."

Just the News reached out to NIAID for comment but did not receive a response before press time.

The former 2016 GOP presidential candidate described how he intends to lead a probe into the origins of COVID-19, if the GOP takes back the Senate in the midterms.

Paul said millions of people have died from COVID-19 but there hasn't been one Senate hearing dedicated to the origins of the virus in China.

"It started out with a cover-up," he said. "So I will subpoena all of Fauci's records, all of his cohorts' and ... all of the people that were involved in this. I will subpoena all those records. The reason I want to get to the bottom of this is not just to have accountability for those who covered this up but to try to make sure this didn't happen again."

Paul said he's 95% sure the virus originally came from the lab in Wuhan, China and warned that something similar "could happen again."

Paul added that "mixing together" viruses as an experiment is "a death wish for civilization."