Rand Paul grills Mayorkas on disinformation board
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., challenged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Department of Homeland Security's newly-announced Disinformation Governance Board.
Sen. Rand Paul's sparring with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the new "Disinformation Governance Board" Thursday foreshadows a collapse of the left's "Church of Government," conservative radio host Dan Bongino said.
Bongino suggested on "The Dan Bongino Show" that Mayorkas' evasive responses to the Kentucky Republican regarding alleged coronavirus-related disinformation shows the secretary knows forthcoming health data may not be on his side, and could thereby doom Democrats' prospects.
"Folks they’re getting ready for some really, really bad long-term data that’s about to come out about how badly the government the left worships botched the response to COVID," the host of Fox News' "Unfiltered" said.
During a Senate hearing, Paul pressed Mayorkas on whether the disinformation board would label his own research and claims about the inefficacy of face masks or the potency of natural immunity to coronavirus.
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Paul, Mayorkas; composite. (Samuel Corum/CNP/ABACAPRESS.COM)
"I’ve said a million times that cloth masks don't work. YouTube takes me down. They’re a private company I can have that beef with them -- What about you?" Paul asked.
Mayorkas replied that DHS "are not the public health experts to make those determinations" – and in a follow-up, would not directly answer Paul whether "public health" would be a purview of the board.
On his program, Bongino explained how the exchange reveals administration concerns the public will learn the truth about the economic, social and mental-health-related fallout from its handling of the pandemic.
"You know the liberal church of government's about to burn to the ground, as longitudinal research starts to come out as we distance ourselves more and more from the initial stages of this pandemic," Bongino said.
He added that Americans are likely to be shocked by the true data on some of Paul's concerns, which he suggested have been suppressed and warned could be subject to arbitration by the disinformation board.
"[It]'s going to show that outside of the direct illness' effects… on the human body, that a lot of the damage done outside the direct effects was done by government, and the church of liberalism is going to take an enormous, enormous shot," he predicted. "You can’t tell people on one hand that government’s going to the cure to all their problems -- when a problem the entire globe just went through wasn't isolated to one country this coronavirus outbreak."
RAND PAUL SPARS WITH MAYORKAS OVER DISINFORMATION BOARD
Bongino (Fox News)
Bongino said even left-leaning researchers will be unable to deny the damage done by shutdowns and other policies, which explains the need for the Biden administration to set up the board.
According to Bongino, this is likely why Mayorkas refused to give Paul a straight answer on whether the new "ministry" will analyze the public health space.
The former Secret Service agent went on to note the disinformation board was not enacted under the purview of regulatory agencies like FCC or HHS, but under DHS which has law enforcement authority.
"[Do] you think that was by accident?" he asked, going on to offer a hypothetical situation in which someone is accused of "causing a national security problem in the United States" under the guise of protecting public health.
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