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Comedian Bill Maher ripped Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his ongoing scrutiny of Anthony Fauci’s time as White House chief medical adviser, arguing the senator strayed from his libertarian roots by releasing the former health official’s diary and pushing to hold him in contempt of Congress.
“Stop threatening to put everyone in jail who you just don’t like,” Maher said Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“Rand babe, your entire brand is ‘Senator Right to Privacy,’” he continued. “You’re the libertarian guy, the Fourth Amendment guy.”
Maher’s comments came days after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Paul, voted 8-5 to refer Fauci for contempt of Congress after he repeatedly refused to answer questions during a hostile Senate hearing last week about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right 111 times during his testimony before the committee, where Republicans slammed his response to the pandemic and blamed him for the public’s declining trust in the American healthcare system.
Ahead of the hearing, Paul released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s notes that he kept on his government computer to the public, referring to them as Fauci’s “COVID diaries.” The records included the former medical adviser’s conversations with administration officials during the early months of the pandemic.
Maher argued that Paul releasing Fauci’s private notes was difficult to reconcile with the senator’s reputation as one of Congress’s most vocal critics of government intrusion.
“It’s your family legacy. Your entire political career has been about warning us about government overreach,” Maher said, referring to former Rep. Ron Paul — a Texas libertarian and Rand Paul’s father.
“You printing someone’s diary is like AOC wearing a gown that says tax the poor,” Maher added, joking about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) controversial appearance at the 2021 Met Gala — where she donned a dress reading “Tax the Rich.”
Fauci received a sweeping pardon from former President Biden on his last day in office in 2025. The pardon covered potential federal offenses between Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 19, 2025.
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