BUCK: We’ve got Senator Rand Paul with us now of Kentucky. Senator, thanks for calling in.

SEN. PAUL: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Buck.

BUCK: So, what are you trying to get to the bottom of here with these hearings, with gain-of-function research? What should the American people know about this and why are we digging deeper into it?

SEN. PAUL: You know, a million Americans died, 6.4 million people died around the world, and I’m actually just shocked that the other side — and many on the Democrat side are not curious at all. Wouldn’t we all want to know if there’s a chance, even a chance that this came from a lab? Wouldn’t we want to know, and wouldn’t we want more oversight on the kind of research that creates novel viruses that increase their transmissibility or increase their lethality?

https://t.co/mmDHU48wJA

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) August 3, 2022

I don’t understand why anybody wouldn’t want to know. But we had yesterday the first hearing ever on gain-of-function. Gain-of-function is when you take a virus of known lethality and then you try to make it more infectious or more lethal. This was the research that was going on in Wuhan, China, and we were funding. When Dr. Fauci was asked directly about it, he says, “Oh, no, we’re not doing that.”

But we had three scientists yesterday — including a scientist who’s the leading advocate for better oversight of this — who’s been talking about this since 2004. He testified yesterday that what Dr. Fauci said was false, that they were doing gain-of-function research; it was funded by the NIH. And interestingly, Dr. Fauci’s claim that his people reviewed it and found it not to be gain-of-function was not true, either.

There’s a committee, a pandemic committee that oversees these viruses, and if they’re supposed to be dangerous or could cause a pandemic. They never reviewed the research in China. To make things matters… To make matters worse, the three scientists yesterday testified that the pandemic review committee that’s supposed to preventing stuff like this from happening is secret. We don’t know the names of the scientists on it, and their reports are secret. We do know that they’ve only investigated three different research contracts, but they didn’t investigate any of the Wuhan research that was going on that may well have led to this virus and this pandemic.

BUCK: And Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and some of the others, Walensky, who have been pushing so much policy during the covid pandemic. I’m sure you’ve seen, Senator Paul, they’re continuing with this, “You need to mask up indoors. They’re continuing with the belief that the vaccines work really well. What are you gonna do if Republicans have control of the Senate and the House? Which I’m hoping and this audience is hoping is what’s gonna happen relatively soon here.

What else is gonna…? You know, what else do you want to chase down about covid, about the pandemic? I mean, Ron DeSantis of Florida, the governor, just reminded everybody earlier this week that the health establishment of this country thought it was okay to approve BLM riots out in the streets while people couldn’t see their sick relatives in the hospital or hug them or touch them. What’s gonna happen if you can actually hold hearings the way you want to?

SEN. PAUL: We’ll investigate every last bit of this. We will subpoena all of Dr. Fauci’s records. We’re gonna find out whether there was a cover-up. Within the first month, there was a letter issued into Lancet, a scientific journal, that said it was a conspiracy theory to indicate you believed this came from a lab. This letter was organized by the main funder of the Wuhan research. EcoHealth Alliance was funding the research.

He worked behind the scenes to get scientists to sign the letter saying you’re crazy if you think this came from a lab. He was covering his butt. Well, we’re gonna find all of this information through subpoena. As far as what works and doesn’t work, there’s a host of information — in fact, a plethora of information — that shows that putting stickers on the floor does nothing but enrich the people who make the stickers.

It doesn’t slow the virus down. Plexiglass doesn’t work. Masks don’t work. Where people wore masks or where they didn’t where masks, they had exactly the same transmission. In states that were under lockdown like California versus states like Florida that were open, no difference in the transmission of the illness, no difference in death rate ultimately.

So really I think what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna bring in the scientists, we’re going to discuss this and have science and have evidence and have studies presented. But we can’t do this again. I mean, they about destroyed our country. The massive inflation that we’re experiencing now is because of the lockdown and all the checks that were passed out.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. And, Senator, you mentioned inflation, the checks that were passed out. What do you want to tell people about this bill that now Joe Manchin seems to have breathed new life into, the anti-inflation spend-and-tax bill?

SEN. PAUL: It’s a terrible idea to raise taxes when you’re in a recession. All indications are we’re in a recession. I think we’re in a recession that will get worse. But the tax increase is a surefire way to make the recession worse and to exacerbate unemployment. Even Barack Obama in 2018 said, “We’re not gonna raise taxes during a recession.” Chuck Schumer used to believe this. Most economists have said, “Don’t raise taxes in a recession.” So it’s a really bad idea.

But if you think the Democrats’ electoral prospects were bad, when they pass this, prices are going to go up. There’s a special tax on natural gas. As we enter into the fall and winter season, people are gonna see their heating bills go up and their natural gas bills go up. Everyone. Not just rich people, everybody’s bill is gonna go up. So this is going to be a disaster for the country, and it’s something we can only hope that maybe one senator, Senator Sinema, might say, “My goodness, do I really want to vote for something that it’s gonna lead us further into recession?”

BUCK: Do you think there’s a chance, Senator Paul, that Senator Sinema may back off of this?

SEN. PAUL: I’m seeing that she’s — and I only know what I’m reading publicly. But what I’m reading publicly is that she has some doubts about part of it. If I had to guess, she’s gonna maybe whittle down some of the taxes — won’t be quite as bad — but the overall bill is gonna still be bad for the country. Can she make it less bad? Perhaps.

BUCK: Senator, we also heard all across the state of Kentucky, your home state, and I know that there have been dozens killed in the recent flooding. You’ve been following this issue very closely, trying to get government attention and resources to help folks affected. How is that recovery effort going? What can you tell us?

SEN. PAUL: You know, if you’ve seen any of the pictures of dramatic rescues by helicopter, it’s just out of this world. But we have saved dozens and dozens of people who might not have made it but for the great rescue workers. These are EMT, helicopter pilots, National Guard, police, fire. All the first responders are just doing an incredible job. As we do, there will be a long effort to clean up and to get people back into houses, shelter, food, et cetera, clothing.

And then really as we get beyond that, one of the things I’m already starting to talk about is whether or not… You know, we have great sophistication in measuring rainfall and predicting rainfall and tornadoes. Certainly, as we measure rivers rising, maybe there needs to be a secondary sort of alarm system. It can be the same tornado alarm system but maybe it goes off such that people are saying, “They’re now telling us the second alarm means the river’s gone up three inches, and within the next hour there’s a chance it’s in my house.” (crosstalk)

BUCK: Senator, how quickly did this come on? For people that maybe don’t know the story, the background, how quickly did this flood happen?

SEN. PAUL: We had 10 and a half to 11 inches in the space of several hours.

BUCK: Wow.

SEN. PAUL: You’ll see that sometimes on owe the Gulf Coast in hurricanes. I grew up in the Houston area, and I remember getting 27 inches in four days. And that’s a lot of rain, and you’d have standing rain on the ground. But Houston’s flat. Whereas this is all the rain that’s collected. So if you have 10 inches of rain — but all of the area of 10 inches of rain for miles and miles drains into one gully or one holler — you can see the effects can be, you know, 50 feet of water rising in a matter of hours. And I think it truly was this. And it was also particularly unfortunate because of the rain was coming in in the evening and past midnight. So a lot of the flooding was occurring after midnight when people are asleep and not maybe as aware of the warnings.

BUCK: Senator Paul, always appreciate your time, sir. Thanks for calling in.

SEN. PAUL: Thanks, Buck.