Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera criticized Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, for turning the Senate into a "bazaar for bozos" after Paul, joined by Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall, drew attention for attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, during a hearing.
Writing on Twitter, Rivera lamented that the Senate used to be regarded as "the world's most dliberative body" but has now been sullied by "low-brow, rudeness displayed by senators like Paul and Marshall" more akin to an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.
Rivera's tweet came after a highly contentious Senate hearing in which Paul accused Fauci of "scheming to quash dissenting views from top scientists" and Marshall, seemingly unaware that Fauci's financial disclosures are a matter of public record, demanded that Fauci produce them.
A firm Fauci told Paul that "in usual fashion... you are distorting everything about me" and was later caught on hot mic referring to Paul as a "moron."
Paul, for his part, suggested that Fauci's recommendations that people wear masks and get inoculated to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19 are "coercive" and pushed back against the idea of implementing a nationwide mandate.
Many have concurred with Rivera's assessment while others have offered further criticisms of Paul and his behavior.
Paul has made numerous headlines since the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic began for making outlandish claims and pushing thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories.
Over the summer, he claimed that Democrats are "plucking" sick children from the nation's southern border and planting them around the country as part of a larger plan to "seed" the highly contagious Delta variant, then the dominant variant, across the United States.
In response, Fauci stressed that "the driving force" of Covid-19 infections nationwide "is within our own country."
Fauci has gone on the record in saying that he doesn't "understand" Paul or his behavior, particularly Paul's penchant for entertaining conspiracy theories about COVID-19's origins during prior hearings on the pandemic response.
