Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Monday that White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci's assertion that he represents science is just the latest instance in which the top infectious disease expert exemplified an inflated ego.
"When a government bureaucrat has the audacity and the arrogance to say they represent all of science, we should be running the other way. It conjures up images of the Medieval Church and their repression of science. Science has nothing to do with having obedience to any kind of government dogma," Paul told host Pete Hegseth during an appearance on "Fox News Primetime."
But Paul still urged Americans to listen to what Fauci has to say because most of his public comments and requests contradict scientific research.
"He isn’t talking about a study on this or a study on that. He is talking about ‘wear a mask.' When you talk about peer-reviewed study of masks, one done in Denmark showed [masking edicts] didn’t work," he said.
The Republican also noted that there have been zero coronavirus infections among the 1.8 million children in Sweden despite them not wearing masks, and there was only a relatively small infection rate among their teachers.
"It turned out the teachers are infected the same rate as the rest of the public," Paul said.
This comes after Fauci said during an interview broadcasted Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that criticisms of him are attacks on science because he represents science.
"They're really criticizing science because I represent science," Fauci said of Paul and other Republican lawmakers who have criticized him for his COVID response.
Paul has previously pressed Fauci about the gain-of-function research funded by the National Institutes of Health in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus originated, and has even demanded that he resign.