The Daily Signal - Sen. Rand Paul on Fauci and Vaccines for Kids

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss his concerns with Dr. Anthony Fauci and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also talks about Attorney General Merrick Garland's war on parents and why he has concerns about whether the COVID-19 vaccine is safe for kids. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, November 19th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Kate Trinko. Today we have Mary Margaret Olahan's interview with Senator Rand Paul. They talk about Attorney General Merrick Garland and how his Justice Department is targeting parents. And they talk about the vaccine for kids and whether it's safe. And of course, Mary Margaret asks the senator about his feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci. But before we get to that interview, let's hit the top news story.

of the day. During her confirmation hearing Thursday, President Joe Biden's nominee for Comptroller of the currency, Saleh Amarova, faced a barrage of questions from the Senate Banking Committee regarding her prior academic work. Amarova has refused to share her thesis titled Carl Marx's economic analysis and the theory of revolution in The Capitol, which she did at her time at Moscow State University. She graduated from Moscow State University back in 1989. Senate Republic Republicans accused Amarova, a Kazakh immigrant and law professor at Cornell University, of wanting to obliterate the banking industry over her writings regarding the role of government in financial institutions. Per NPR, Amarova has previously suggested that the federal government

might offer a bank account to every American through the Federal Reserve, and in another piece, called for a government agency to approve or reject new financial products. Senator John Kennedy, Republican from Louisiana, questioned Amarova about her member in Communist youth groups. Here's Kennedy via the Hill. You used to be a member of a group called the Young Communist, didn't you? Senator, are you referring to my membership in the Youth Communist Organization while I was growing up in the Soviet Union?

I don't know. I just wanted to ask you that question. Well, Senator, I... There was a group called the Young Communists, and you were a member, is that right? I'm not exactly sure which group you're referring to. Well, the formal name of it is the Leninist, communist, young union of the Russian Federation, and it's also known as the Leninist Comsumal of the Russian Federation, and it's commonly referred to as the young

communists. Were you a member? Senator, I was born and grew up in the United States. up in the Soviet Union. Yes, ma'am. But were you a member of that organization? Everybody in that country was a member of the Kamsamol, which was the Communist Youth Organization. So you were a member?

That was a part of normal progress in school. Senator Tim Scott, Republican from South Carolina, was blunt with his criticism and quoted many of Amarova's positions that he found objectionable. But I will be frank and honest. I cannot think of a nominee more poorly suited to be the control of the currency based solely on your public positions, statements, and the weight of your writings than you are. Let me just quote you versus anybody else. On the Green New Deal champion, you proposed taking economic and climate policymaking from Congress and creating an unaccountable bureaucracy called the National Investment Authority.

And a roundtable this year, this year, you push to make the NIA, the dedicated institutional platform at the federal level for really being the kind of fighting muscle of the Green New Deal and fighting muscle of, you know, all of these other movements that pursuing environmental justice, social, economic justice, equality, and so on. But it wasn't just Republicans who were critical of Amarova. Some moderate Democrats also had concerns with a rhetoric. Senator John Tester, Democrat from Montana, said in a statement before Thursday's hearing, some of Dr. Amarova's past statements about the role of government in the financial system raise real concerns about her ability to impartially serve at the office of the comptroller of the currency. And I'm looking forward to discussing them with her at her hearing. Judge Bruce Schroeder, the judge proceeding over the Kyle Ridenhouse trial in Kenosha,

has banned MSNBC from being in the courtroom via Newsmax. I have instructed that no one from MSNBC news will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial. This is a very serious matter and I don't know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely it would go without much thinking that someone who is following the jury bus,

that is a very, it's extremely serious matter and will be referred to. to the proper authorities for further action. NBC, however, told Fox News in a statement. Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation. While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations and never photographed or intended to photograph them.

We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation. However, in his remarks, Judge Schroeder said the freelancer had claimed he'd been told by his boss at MSNBC to follow the jury van. Last evening, a person who identified himself as James Jim Morrison and who claimed that he was a producer with NBC News employed for MSNBC. named Irene Bayon in New York for MSNBC. The police, when they stopped him because he was following in a distance of about a block and went through a red light, pulled him over, and inquired of him what was going on, and he gave that information and stated that he had been instructed by Ms. Bayon in New York to follow the jury bus.

The Justice Department announced on Thursday it would be charging two Iranian men accused of helping to orchestrate a cyber campaign to intimidate and influence voters in the 2020 election. The plot involved sending email supposedly from the Proud Boys Group to tens of thousands of voters, threatening to hurt them unless they switched parties and voted for former President Donald Trump. The two men, Syed Mohammed Hussein Musa Kazemi and Sejad Kashyan, also allegedly attempted to compromise voter registration websites in 11 states and claimed that the election results couldn't be trusted. In a statement released on the Department of Justice website, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olson said, this indictment details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among the Iran-based actors waged a targeted, to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system, and to so discord among the Iran. Americans. The allegations illustrate how foreign disinformation campaigns operate and seek to influence the American public. The department is committed to exposing and disrupting maligned foreign influence efforts using all available tools, including criminal charges. The two men are not currently in custody,

but remain at large. Stay tuned for Mary Margaret's interview with Senator Rand Paul, where they discuss vaccines, Dr. Fauci, and a lot more. We're all guilty of it. Spending too much time on the internet watching silly videos. But it's the 21st century, and maybe it's time for a change. At the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel, you'll find videos that both entertain and educate, including virtual events featuring the biggest names in American politics, original explainers and documentaries, and heritage experts diving deep on topics like election integrity, China, and other threats to our democracy.

All brought to you by the nation's most broadly supported public policy research, Institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. My guest today is Senator Rand Paul, a Republican representing the people of Kentucky. Senator Paul, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm very glad to be with you. Thanks for having me. So I'd like to start with this disturbing news from the House Judiciary Committee showing that the FBI ordered personnel to compile parent threat assessments on October 20th. And then the next day, on October 21st, Merrick Garland told lawmakers that the FBI was not targeting parents.

What's going on here? Well, apparently dishonesty on the part of Merrick Garland, but really, this should worry all of us. My father warned about this 20 years ago. He said when they passed the Patriot Act and when they began going after terrorists, he said, beware that they'll use these same devices, these same powers, these same ability to snoop on our lives, that they'll use it on Americans. And sure enough, they're using it on discriminatory. parents. They also used it on President Trump when he was running for office. They used foreign

intelligence warrants to investigate his campaign. So this is really an abuse of the intelligence community. So what type of consequences should Attorney General Merrick Garland face for misleading Congress in this way? What we really have to do is change the rules. We shouldn't let people go outside of the Constitution. So the Constitution protects us through the Fourth Amendment. So if anybody wants to snoop on parents, they have to get a warrant from a judge. from a public judge who in a public court will have to defend this. You get a chance to defend yourself with an attorney. And so the Fourth Amendment does protect us from unreasonable searches

and unreasonable snooping or wiretapping. But a lot of this is done in an underhanded way not really obeying the Constitution. And the FBI has extraordinary powers to listen in on things. And frankly, as we all know, the FBI has become politicized. It's under the direction of the Department of Justice. But yeah, I'm incredibly concerned about speech, about parents' rights, about family rights, if the government's going after and attacking people who object to their kids being indoctrinated. So should Republicans be actively encouraging whistleblowers to expose whether the Biden administration is trampling on American civil liberties?

I think any time someone is breaking the law in government, it's a good idea to hear about it. And so frankly, yes, I think it is a good idea for people to reveal when the government's breaking the government's, breaking government. the rules, even with the most famous whistleblower of all, Edward Snowden, when he released the warrant, it was a warrant for all of our phone calls, which is a generalized warrant and been considered unconstitutional, even back to revolutionary times and before. But he revealed that there was a warrant for Verizon, but not for a person, not for a drug dealer, not for a terrorist, for everybody that had a Verizon cell phone. And that's the very definition of a generalized warrant. And so, yes, I think that when people were

reveal that the government's breaking law. His revelation lost him his country, but it also gained us the knowledge to fight that in Congress. And ultimately, we did strip a lot of the authority of them to record the metadata of our phone calls without a warrant. That was stripped away, largely because we found out about it because of Edward Snowden. Well, Senator, this is just one of several very significant issues that are touching the lives of American family, specifically, you know, with this targeting of parents. Another one, One is vaccine mandates, and we are hearing talk of proposals for vaccine mandates for even children. What are your thoughts on this?

I don't think that we have completely explored the safety for children. Number one, we don't know whether or not if your child has already had COVID, whether the vaccine is safe. You say, how could that be? The CDC vote on it. Didn't they do a study? Did they look at several thousand children? Well, they did look at several thousand children, which is a fairly small sample, but they excluded children who had already had COVID. You say, well, why did they exclude them?

Well, because they actually do tacitly acknowledge that the kids are no good for the determining whether the vaccine works because they've already had the disease. And so they understand natural immunity. They just feign as if they don't. But by excluding kids that have already had it, we don't know if the myocarditis or some of these side effects are more common in people who have already had the disease. The reason it might be more common is because if you've already had COVID and you get vaccinated, you get a thousand times greater immune response.

Now, you might say, well, that's great. You know, you get this wonderful immune response. And if you're 80 years old, it might be. But if you're 10 years old or 15 years old, it might be that your immune response to the vaccine after you've already had the disease is so exuberant that it may lead to some of these inflammatory conditions like inflammation of the heart that, you know, God forbid your healthy kid who's not really at risk much for COVID gets a deadly or debilitating disease from a vaccine. I would think you'd want to make an informed decision.

But instead, Dr. Fauci says, stick your head in the sand, don't ask me any questions, just do what you're told. And basically, that's the noise of a dictator. So do you think we will reach a point where families are penalized for failing to vaccinate their children? I fully expect the public schools will forbid entry into the schools without COVID, and that's coming. And so people with young children, you know, fortunately, I survived all this minor now grown. There's grandkids will be the text thing I'll have to worry about, but, you know, that's what's coming. The public schools aren't going to relent. The mandate from OSHA, I think it's going to be, you know, it's been stayed by the court and may well be struck down.

I'm very hopeful that the courts will find it unconstitutional, but the mandates for kids in schools, we've had that for decades now, and the courts have never really helped us with it. The problem is, is they're now mandating a lot of vaccines to things that are not really deadly. particularly deadly at all for children and with, you know, rare consequences. Look, Sweden hadn't had any of their kids in masks the whole last year, 1.8 million kids, they had zero deaths and they had no increased incidence of infection with the teacher. So, yeah, I think we need more information on whether or not it's a good idea to vaccinate our children, but I fully expect, meaning these are the same people that want to teach critical race

theory. They're the same people that want to teach your kindergartner that if they're a boy, they can easily become a girl. I mean, this is the craziness being foisted upon our children in school, but it's also the same crazy people that want to hold your kid down and give them a shot without your permission. And we need to fight back. So I'd like to read a quote to you from Dr. Anthony Fauci's along these lines. This is from this weekend. He referred to a, quote, misplaced perception about people's individual right to make a decision. that supersedes the societal safety. What do you make of that?

To me it sounds like a casual disregard for what this country was founded upon, that our rights come from our creator, that they're guaranteed and enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And to me it sounds like he has a casual disregard for that. But he also has a casual disregard for the science as well.

He just wants you to listen to his authority. He has the authority. He wants people to listen and not question him. But that's sort of a recipe for authoritarianism. So I greatly object to him. I think that. I think his judgment was poor on funding the Wuhan lab where this virus may well have been created. I think everything about his daily pronouncements is wrong and over the top and overreach for government. So I think we would be best of separating from government as soon as we can. But not one Democrat has called

for any kind of hearings. Not one Democrat is interested in investigating where the virus came from. I've been trying for six months now in the two main committees I'm on, the health committee and the Homeland Security Committee to get a hearing, an investigative hearing on the origins of the virus. I can get nothing. The Democrats completely are stone wallace. That's really interesting that you bring that up. President Joe Biden just had a three-hour long call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But there was no evidence that they discussed the origins of COVID. I know you're on the committee in foreign relations. Are you aware of whether or not one of the most important topics on the planet came up between these two world leaders? I've just seen the press report stating that it didn't. But I think also they see us as weak.

We're a country stumbling. We're a country that's, you know, has an incompetent at the head who, you know, can't remember his lines, has his lines written for him, is confused and addled on many days. I think they see that as a country that's selected a weak leader. and I think they'll try to continue to take advantage of us. But see, you have to realize that Anthony Fauci works for Biden, and Anthony Fauci still thinks the Chinese should be trusted. He doesn't think the virus could have come from the lab, and he thinks we should still send money over there for research in the lab.

And I think that's a death wish. And I'm not alone. I mean, there are many scientists now writing about this who are not partisans, who are not political at all. In fact, many of them are a liberal Democrats saying that this kind of research could threaten civilization. if they create a virus that has like a 50% mortality, and some of the experiments are with viruses with 50% mortality,

we could wipe out a large portion of the civilized world. It could be devastating. Think of all the people that are necessary with the brains and the ingenuity to be the leaders of every generation. If you wipe out 50%, and it's often the way people think of war, you know, you think of war were one of the millions of young men and women that died, primarily men, but they were lost, that could have helped humanity in some way with some ideas.

I think what happens with a virus that kills 50 percent, and he shows absolutely no concern, nothing but disdain. But really, he is pushing hard to cover his tracks and make sure he doesn't get any of the blame. So now we have two different major figures in the Biden administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who have appeared to lie to the American people on multiple occasions. And we see heavy criticism from Republicans

on these matters. But do any of your Democratic colleagues speak out against Garland or against Fauci when they mislead the American public? No, to them, I think it's largely a partisan game. They hated everything about Trump and they were eager to be critical, but they are unwilling to be reflective when it's to their own president and realize the conundrum we have. You know, I've referred Fauci for a criminal investigation, but I had to refer him to Merrick Garland. I'm referring to a guy that now is publicly attacking parents and going after investigating parents for their opinion. And I guess fully believes, as McColliffe said in Virginia, that it's none of our business, what they're teaching our kids.

We're expecting him to honestly investigate Fauci. No, it's not going to happen. But it's going to come in 2022. There's a wave of discontent rising in the country, the revolutions that they're wanting to get $450,000 to illegal immigrants that broke into the country and were somehow separated from their children, really by the courts and for their own safety is the reason they're separated from adults. But the thing is, to give them $450,000, these kind of things, these kind of proposals are so unpopular that I think I don't see the way of getting smaller. I think the wave

of discontent and wave wishing political change is growing up and larger every day. So Fauci is one of the highest paid employees in the federal government, if not the highest. What would you like to see happen to him if Republicans take back Congress? I'd like to see an investigation. In fact, I'll lead at least one committee, and we will use subpoena power to bring him in. We'll use subpoena power to bring in his documents, and we will get to the bottom of this. We will get to the bottom of where the virus started. We will subpoena all the information.

We will see whether there was a cover-up between him and Peter Day's Act on the funding to Wuhan. That will all be investigated. But we will get to the bottom of this. we will also get to the bottom of gain of function research, whether or not you should be creating viruses that don't exist in nature that could ultimately threaten our civilization. We're going to get to the bottom of whether we should continue that kind of research and whether the government should fund it. So there's a lot of things that are going to happen, and a lot of there will absolutely be consequences for the people who are flouting the law. But really, Fauci needs to be gone. When we have the power to remove him, we will.

I don't know if that's going to come before, you know, Biden leaves the office. but we'll see what can happen with Unified Congress. It's not still easy without the presidency. Well, Senator, before we go, I would love to hear your take on this for our listeners. Do you have any advice for Americans who are grappling with all of this with potential vaccine mandates for their children or losing their jobs over the president's vaccine mandate? What would you tell them? Don't give up and don't give in.

Moral outrage is effective when people heard that the government was going to look through their bank accounts. if more than $600 went through, guess what? There was moral outrage. Town halls across America and the Democrats removed it. If there's enough outrage over this $450,000 proposal to illegal immigrants, my guess is they'll back down on that too. The vaccine mandate, if you ask the American people, are you in favor of firing people who choose not to get vaccinated?

Only 14% of the American people are for that. So the 86% of us need to be outraged. What I mean by that is voice your opinion. to your newspaper, go to your local school board, et cetera. It doesn't mean you have to yell and scream. It doesn't mean you have to, you know, provoke people in any physical way. It means get your point heard, write letters to editor, call into shows. There are ways. And I think the Democrats are feeling some of that heat now, even though they profess they're going to blindly go forward. There's some of them feeling the heat. And there's beginning to be doubts and cracks

form in their coalition. All right. Well, Senator Paul, this has been a fascinating conversation, and we're very grateful for you joining us today. Thank you. Enjoyed it. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeart Radio.

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