Dr. Anthony Fauci became increasingly fixated on his newfound fame as pandemic deaths soared, reveal the former White House COVID adviser’s newly released diary entries.
As early as April 2020, when more than 60,000 people had already died of COVID in the United States, the man in charge of America’s response to the pandemic was obsessing about his recent stardom, according to journals released by Kentucky Republican Sen. and long-term Fauci critic Rand Paul.
“Press still hot and heavy about me. Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me,” Fauci wrote in an entry dated April 7, 2020, amid intensifying media coverage around the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
On May 21, 2020, the top doc wrote that his “national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable,” adding it was “not hyperbole” to describe his celebrity in terms of global recognition, according to the diary.
By this point, nearly 98,000 Americans had died of COVID, and the 85-year-old doctor was involved in extensive task-force meetings.
In late June 2020, as US daily COVID cases reached a record 40,000 in a single day, Dr. Fauci felt fit to mention that he had received an invitation to appear on TV’s “Dancing with the Stars.”
The doctor also repeatedly addressed his growing friction with the Trump White House, claiming that “countless” media profiles about him, and his increased media presence, were turning him into “a star that outshines” the president, he wrote.
He also reflected on his growing celebrity by adding that the Secret Service officers stationed at the White House gates would now routinely wave his vehicle through security checkpoints without asking to inspect his identification because they were so familiar with seeing him.
Dr. Fauci insisted he had “no desire to conflict with, embarrass or show up the POTUS” when he later decided to stop participating altogether in profile interviews.
Sen. Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has frequently clashed with Fauci over the federal response and origins of the COVID virus.
His release of the diaries comes just days before Fauci is scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee after being subpoenaed by Paul.
The Kentucky Republican is arguing that the diary entries reveal a public health official who was overly worried about his celebrity, personal image and media narrative during a time of national emergency.
“Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people,” Paul said in an X post June 28 ahead of the diary entries’ release, as he accused federal health leadership of focusing on self-promotion and misdirecting public scrutiny in the early months of the pandemic.
A Trump senior adviser, Peter Navarro, has branded Fauci the “Dr. Frankenstein of the modern era,” accusing him of having “the blood of millions of people on his hands, during an interview with Fox Business on June 25.
“You idiot! … You need to come clean, Fauci,” Navarro said.
Fauci did not respond to requests for comment.
