Rand Paul to Force a Vote on Bill to End Mask Mandates on Planes: ‘Science Isn’t Changing, but the Polls Sure Are’

ATHENS, GREECE - MAY 11: Refugees wave from a plane carrying group of 50 people, including
Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Fox News’s Dan Bongino he is forcing a vote in the next two weeks to end mask mandates on planes, noting leftist leaders are only suddenly lifting restrictions due to souring opinions, as “the science isn’t changing, but the polls sure are.”

“But the interesting thing is that the Democrat governors are finally giving up on some of this stuff. Even D.C., the most Democrat city in the entire country, the mayor put on vaccine passports two weeks ago, put businesses — put restaurants out of business. Well, she’s already relinquished it,” Paul said.

“She’s getting rid of it. The mask mandates, getting ready to go away,” he continued, noting he is now focusing on the federal mask mandate, which forces individuals to wear masks on planes.

“I have bill that I’m going to force a vote on in the next two weeks on getting rid of the mask on airplanes. It’s only theater. You can take them off for 15 minutes and breathe air which is recirculated to everybody else,” Paul said of the illogical mandate.

“People are wearing cloth masks which don’t work. How many people are wearing an N95? Probably 75 percent of the people are wearing cloth because the other ones hurt,” he continued.

“And the thing is is, I think ultimately the Democrats are going to wake up one day and say, ‘My goodness, everyone hates us now because we’re the nanny state,’ and so it’s happening, and it’s happening in a big way, and some of the Democrats are finally waking up,” Paul said, repeating what other conservative allies have observed as well: “The science isn’t changing, but the polls sure are”:

Last week, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) made a similar observation during a speech on the floor.

“Sometimes I hear the phrase, the science changed. The science hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that there’s an election coming, and Democrats have seen the polling on this question,” he said.  “Now they are running scared and they want to pretend that they didn’t force your kid to wear a mask for two years.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose state has remained maskless and free as his administration has continued to fight Biden’s mandates, also made sure Americans know that the science has not changed.

A sign reminds airline passengers to wear face masks as they wait to collect bags from a baggage carousel at the Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) on January 2, 2022 in Las Vegas, California. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Rather, blue state leaders are making political maneuvers, he said.

“So when you start to see them kind of reevaluate or say all this, just understand this. The science didn’t change. The medical science didn’t change. The political science changed. They feel the heat. They know that voters have been tired of perpetual lockdown policies,” DeSantis said this month.

“They know that they have basically offered no offramp and they know that they’re fixing to be whooped at the polls, so that’s causing the epiphany,” he added:

Currently, the federal mask mandate on planes is set to expire March 18, although it remains unclear if the Biden administration will move to extend it yet again.

Paul’s plan comes on the heels of Senate Republicans suffering a major fail last week after four GOP senators — Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Richard Burr (R-NC) —  failed to show up to vote on Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) amendment which would have defunded Biden’s remaining vaccine mandates. 

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