Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul pounced on CNBC reporter Kelly Evans for aggressive lines of questioning on vaccines and taxes, urging her to “try a little objectivity” and at one point actually shushing her.
Evans pulled no punches in the Monday interview, beginning by asking incredulously if the senator “really just [said] . . . that you think most vaccines should be ‘voluntary?’”
“Well, I guess being for freedom would be really unusual?” Paul replied testily. “I guess I don’t understand the point.”
It went downhill rapidly from there, with Paul pushing back on Evans’s contention that his tax repatriation plan would cost more money that it saves. “Hey Kelly,” he said, shushing her when she tried to interrupt. “Calm down a bit here, Kelly. Let me answer the question.”
And when the reporter asked about a Washington Post piece on Paul’s failed attempt to create an ophthalmology certification board, the senator made clear that the interview was over.
“You’ve made an interview into something where we got no useful information,” he said, “because you were argumentative and you started out with so many presuppositions that were incorrect.”
Calling the interview “slanted” and “full of distortions,” Paul recommended that Evans ”try to start out with a little more objectivity going into the interview.”
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