Dr. Fauci to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul: ‘You do not know what you are talking about.’

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, accused each either other of lying Tuesday while they argued again over COVID in a Senate meeting.

During a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, the argument started over whether the National Institutes of Health funded research at a lab in Wuhan, China, which has emerged as a possible source of the virus.

Paul has accused the U.S. health agency of funding research that boosts a virus to analyze how it spreads and operates — called gain-of-function research. That, Paul alleges, could have contributed to the initial coronavirus outbreak.

While speaking to Congress previously, Fauci had denied that the health institute ever funded gain-of-function research at a Wuhan lab. Paul on Tuesday asked Fauci if he wanted to retract his previous denial.

“I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” said Fauci, who was testifying to the Senate as a witness.

Paul, a Republican up for re-election next year, continued to press Fauci, making claims that the viral studies being done were gain-of-function, which Fauci again denied.

“Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially,” Fauci said. “You do not know what you are talking about.”

The two proceeded to talk over each other until Paul’s speaking time expired, at which point he said Fauci “won’t admit the truth.”

“You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals,” Fauci said. “I totally resent that, and if anybody’s lying here, senator, it is you.”

Paul replied by saying the health institute’s actions “could have been” responsible for deaths.

Fauci said there was a “pattern” of Paul trying to argue with Fauci “based on no reality.”

The two have clashed repeatedly over the course of the pandemic as Paul has tried to dispute statements made by the nation’s top infectious disease expert.