Rand Paul Hilariously Dunks On Uninformed Liberal Pundit

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul shut down a progressive writer who insisted he isn’t a real doctor by pointing to his career operating on people’s eyes.

The exchange began on the social media platform X, where progressive author John Pavlovitz challenged Paul’s medical bona fides. “You know who isn’t a doctor? Rand Paul isn’t, and RFK Jr isn’t, you stuporous dope,” Pavlovitz wrote Aug. 7. His post grew out of a thread that started with a separate user’s claim that Anthony Fauci does not deserve the title of doctor.

Paul answered directly the following day. “I’m literally an MD. I operate on eyeballs,” the senator wrote on his verified account. (RELATED: Senate Committee Votes To Hold Fauci In Contempt)

I’m literally an MD. I operate on eyeballs.

Readers on the platform moved quickly to correct the record. A Community Note appended to the exchange confirmed that Paul holds a medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine and worked as an ophthalmologist, citing his Senate biography and public record.

Paul graduated from Duke Medical School and completed his ophthalmology residency at Duke University Medical Center before building a practice in Bowling Green, Kentucky, according to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which he now chairs. He treated patients there for years prior to his 2010 election to the Senate.

Paul founded the Southern Kentucky Lions Eye Clinic in 1995 to provide free exams and surgeries to low-income patients, according to NPR. He told National Review in 2013 that he had performed more than 100 surgeries at no charge.

Pavlovitz is a former youth pastor turned author, and has built a following as a voice on the religious left through his blog “Stuff That Needs to Be Said,” according to Faith & Leadership. He was fired from a megachurch in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2013, according to Broadview Magazine.

The senator has pressed for Fauci to face consequences over his pandemic testimony and has questioned vaccine recommendations in recent hearings, keeping his physician background at the center of his political fights.