Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said during an appearance on Fox News' "Unfiltered with Dan Bongino" that in the next two weeks, he is forcing a vote on a bill in the U.S. to end mask mandates on planes.
"I have a 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 told host Dan Bongino.
"People are wearing cloth masks which don't work. How many people are wearing an N95? Probably 75% of the people are wearing cloth because the other ones hurt," he continued.
"And the thing 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."
The Kentucky senator also noted that Democrats are only lifting restrictions due to widespread disapproval as the midterm election approaches.
"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."
The federal mask mandate on air travel is set to expire on March 18, although it remains unclear if the Biden administration will move to extend it yet again, Breitbart reported.
The comments from Paul follow a failed measure last week by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to defund remaining federal vaccine mandates.
The motion failed after four Republican senators — Mitt Romney of Utah, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Richard Burr of North Carolina — were absent from the vote, a Twitter post by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, revealed.
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