GOP senator Rand Paul. (Getty)
Republican senator Rand Paul has said a former Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official had “no business being in government” due to his “lifestyle.”
The notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ Kentuckian remarked that he believed former CDC director, Demetre Daskalakis, was unfit for the position over what he described as his “risky” lifestyle.
Daskalakis resigned as the CDC’s director for the Centre of Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, alongside several other CDC officials, earlier this week over concerns regarding health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s decision-making.
Asked about the resignations on Tuesday (2 September), Sen. Paul said: “One of the guys that is the biggest proponent of doing all this is the guy who describes the risky behaviour that he and his lifestyle involve.
“A guy that is so far … out of the mainstream, I think most people in America would discount his opinion because of the things he said in the past. He does not represent the mainstream of anything in America,” he went on.
“He should have never had a position in government. He brags about his lifestyle, you know, this whole idea of bondage and, you know, multiple partners and all that stuff. He brags about that stuff, but he’s got no business being in government. It’s good riddance.”
According to The Hill, Daskalakis posed for the cover of Plus Magazine wearing a leather harness under a pinstripe suit in 2021. In 2020, he issued advice for those engaging in group-sex acts during the COVID-19 pandemic, recommending to “limit the size of your guest list.”
Following his resignation, Daskalakis spoke out against RFK jr, saying he could “only see harm coming” from the health secretary’s policies.
“I may be wrong. But … based on what I’ve heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, they’re really moving in an ideologic direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination. They do want to see the undoing of mRNA vaccination,” he told ABC last week.
Among many of Kennedy’s controversial decisions was the closure of an LGBTQ+ youth suicide lifeline under orders from president Donald Trump.
The LGBTQ+ Youth Specialised Service hotline, known as the ‘Press 3 Option’, was closed in July. The Trevor Project, which helped to create the service, said they were “devastated and heartbroken” over its closure.