Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released a trove of Anthony Fauci’s diary entries Saturday, the latest in a series of document dumps further exposing the corruption of many of the scientists and government officials behind the tyrannical response to Covid. Among other revelations, Fauci’s entries from December 2019 to December 2022 reveal a man fixated on legacy media appearances, the perks of fame, and the growing Fauci “cult” even as the pandemic escalated.
The size of Fauci’s ego is no surprise to anyone who lived through Covid with his eyes open. He was notorious for doing home interviews with a portrait of himself in the background. He once claimed, “Attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science.” Here, for good measure, is a Washington Post story with Fauci doing commentary on portraits of himself.
But his diary entries provide new insight into just how inflated Fauci’s self-importance became over the course of the pandemic. The entries are crammed with records of his appearances on corporate media broadcasts and clippings of news stories about, well, himself. “PRESS” is a near daily occurrence, followed by shows that featured the government’s highest-paid official. Though not always related to Fauci’s own media appearances, “CNN” appears 275 times in the diary. “CBS” and “NBC” show up more than 100 times each.
Becoming a go-to pundit for legacy media was clearly important to Fauci, as was getting to rub shoulders with well-known media personalities who increasingly fawned over him. On Feb. 27, 2020, Fauci wrote that it “turned into an amazing day. Chris Cuomo calls me up and says that he wants me on his show …” Two months later, Fauci discussed the lockdowns with Cuomo and wrote that “Chris is being wonderful about saying that the press should not use Fauci as a foil against the POTUS. We need Fauci and we are putting him in a terrible position by pitting him against the POTUS.” A few days later he noted that he was “becoming friends” with both Chris Cuomo and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. On March 11, Fauci described watching a media segment where the “CNN commentators,” including Chris Cuomo and Anderson Cooper, “all discussed me as the adult in the room and the person wew [sic] should all trust.”
On April 14 Fauci had a phone call with Jake Tapper, who “wanted to make sure the interview did not cause me any problems.” In May, Fauci described Tapper and Cuomo as coming to his “defense on their shows.” On July 1 Fauci wrote, “Had dinner over Jake Tapper and Jen Tapper’s home in DC. Terrific couple. Friendship building.” Later that month, Fauci recorded that Jake Tapper “woke me up” after he had gone to bed to express frustration at Donald Trump criticism of Tapper. Fauci had dinner with the Tappers again on Oct. 20, 2020.
Amid deepening relationships with corporate media personalities, Fauci also became obsessed with what the press said about him, copying and pasting a host of media coverage into his personal diary. Such as this:
And these:
Oh, and these:
And there are a few more of those, but the general idea should be fairly clear. Corporate media coverage of Fauci meant a lot to Fauci, in part because Fauci meant a lot to Fauci. But in addition to handling his extensive pandemic duties, he also took time to track the growing Fauci “cult.” In February 2020 a social media trend caught his eye, “an amazing twitter storm that was widely and virally tweated to not suppress the ‘great Fauci.’ I was getting hundreds and hundreds of emails of support. There is even a #freeFauci out there.”
On March 31, he referenced the infamous Washington Post article “Fauci socks, Fauci doughnuts, Fauci fan art: The coronavirus expert attracts a cult following” and wrote: “Complete craziness with this Fauci cult hero stuff.” But, as is known from earlier email leaks, Fauci did take the time to forward the article to a National Institutes of Health colleague, writing, “Truly surrealistic. Hopefully, this all stops soon.” He also said about the article, “It is not at all pleasant, that is for sure.” Just not too unpleasant to include in its entirety in his personal journal (along with an Atlantic article titled “Why America Is Thirsty For Anthony Fauci,” which called him a “crushable” “pop star”). So he didn’t really like the cult, but he made sure to scrapbook the cult’s greatest hits, and the corporate media reported on the cult — and retained membership in the cult. Or, as Fauci put it on April 7, 2020, “Press still hot and heavy about me.”
Perhaps the most egregious thing about Fauci’s hubris was that it proliferated even as the crisis he allegedly funded and certainly exacerbated wreaked havoc across the country. On May 21, 2020, Fauci began his entry by noting that global deaths from Covid had reached approximately 10,000 and U.S. deaths had exceeded 270. Then he wrote this:
Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world. Countless profiles on me in multiple media. I cannot even read all the things that are written abuyt [sic] me since I am so busy….seriously. POTUS seems to be enamored of me even though I am taking the spotlight away from him.
So even as Covid tyrants were ripping away Americans’ First Amendment rights and shutting down their businesses and isolating everyone and forcing the elderly to die alone, there was a silver lining: Fauci was getting more famous — and really enjoying it. As Americans were getting their faces stuffed behind masks and censored on social media, Fauci’s face was on doughnuts and seemingly every television in the country as he documented his rise to fame. It might seem frustrating, infuriating even — until you realize how important Fauci is. Just read his diary.
