In a hearing on Tuesday, January 11, Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) got into another argument about COVID-19 in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

From Fox News: 

“[Fauci] funded the lab,” Paul told host Martha MacCallum. “He tried to obscure the idea that he was giving money to the lab and then he steadfastly, for two years, said it wasn’t gain of function, that they weren’t taking viruses that don’t exist in nature, creating them and creating viruses that are so dangerous that they could actually wipe out a portion of humanity.”

“He continues to deny that if this came from the lab — yes, he’s culpable,” Paul added. “So when you ask him to investigate it, he’s not exactly interested. He has a conflict of interest because it came from the lab.”

Paul discussed how Fauci previously appeared to claim to be the human embodiment of science by declaring, “I am the science” in response to another interviewer’s question about critics attacking him.

“Dr. Fauci doesn’t want to debate. He wants to squelch debate because ‘he is science’. If you criticize him, you’re criticizing science,” Paul said.

Democrats are also worried that they could lose Senate races unless the filibuster is changed and their voting rights bill is passed. Of course, Democrats have been trying to persuade Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) to change their minds and eliminate the filibuster and allow legislation to pass by a majority (51) vote.

From The Hill: 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), speaking about changes to voting laws in various states during a recent interview with CNN, added that nearly every senator in the caucus had been lobbying Manchin and Sinema on voting rights, including “going up to them and saying, ‘I’ll lose my election if … you allow these changes to occur.’”  

Schumer has vowed that he will force a vote on the legislative filibuster by Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Election experts have pointed to the timeline as a key cutoff point for getting federal election legislation passed by the start of the 2022 primaries and with enough time to survive likely legal challenges.   

Tracking by the Brennan Center for Justice, which supports passing election legislation, found as of late last year that 19 state legislatures had passed 34 laws restricting access to voting in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, which former President Trump has falsely claimed was “stolen.” That includes states that have at least one Democratic senator, such as Arizona and Georgia. Democratic governors in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin vetoed attempts to change voting rules.