Sen. Rand Paul clashes with ABC's Stephanopoulos: 'You're forgetting who you are as a journalist!'

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. had a fiery exchange with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Sunday over the challenge to the 2020 presidential election with the top GOP lawmaker questioning the anchor's journalistic integrity. 

Stephanopoulos began the contentious interview by asking Paul if he accepts the "fact" that the "election was not stolen." Paul responded by insisting that the "debate" over voter fraud should occur and acknowledged how evidence from various claims was never examined since legal cases were "thrown out" by the courts. 

While Paul listed off various irregularities that could be challenged or overturned by the Supreme Court, including secretaries of state unilaterally changing election laws by skipping the legislative process, Stephanopoulos had enough. 

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"Senator Paul, I have to stop you there," Stephanopoulos interrupted. "No election is perfect but there were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies in court, all were dismissed... The Department of Justice led by William Barr said there was no widespread evidence of fraud. Can't you just say the words, 'This election was not stolen?'"

"What I would suggest is if we want greater confidence in our elections and 75 percent of Republicans agree with me is that we do need to look into election integrity and do need to see if we can restore confidence in the elections," Paul doubled down. 

"Well, 75 percent of Republicans agree with you because they were fed a big lie by President Trump and his supporters to say that the election was stolen," Stephanopoulos fired back. 

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"George, where you make the mistake is that people coming from the liberal side like you, you immediately say everything's a lie instead of saying there are two sides to everything," Paul told the anchor. "Historically what would happen is if I said that I thought there was fraud, you would interview someone who said there wasn't, but now you insert yourself in the middle and say that the absolute fact is that everything I'm saying is a lie without examining the facts." 

After Stephanopoulos erupted at Paul to reitterate President Trump's claim that the election was "stolen," the senator shot back.

"You say we're all liars, you're just simply saying we're all liars," Paul accused Stephanopoulos. "There has been no examination, thorough examination of all the states to see what problems we had and see if we can fix them. Now let me say, to be clear, I voted to certify the state electors because I think it would be wrong for Congress to overturn that, but at the same time, I'm not willing just to sit here and say 'Oh, everybody on the Republican side is a liar and there is no fraud.' No, there were lots of problems and there were secretaries of state who illegally changed the law and that needs to be fixed and I'm going to work hard to fix it."

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"I won't be cowed by people who say, 'Oh, you're a liar.' That's the problem with the media today is that they say all Republicans are liars and everything we say is a lie. There are two sides to every story. Interview somebody on the other side, but don't insert yourself into the story to say we're all liars because we knew there was some fraud in the election," Paul continued. 

"There are not two sides to the story," Stephanopoulos pushed back. "This has been looked at in every state and it was certified in every state."

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"You're forgetting who you are! You are forgetting who you are as a journalist if you think there's only one side!" Paul exclaimed. "You're inserting yourself into the story to say that I'm a liar because I want to look at election fraud and I want to look at secretaries of state who illegally changed the voter laws without the permission of their state legislatures. That is incontroverible. It happened. And you can't just sweep that under the rug and say oh nothing to see here and everybody's a liar and you're a fool if you bring this up! You're inserting yourself into the story. A journalist would hear both sides and there are two sides to this story."

The ABC anchor insisted he was "standing by facts" and that there are "no two sides to facts."