Newly released diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci suggest the former White House COVID-19 adviser was closely tracking his sudden rise in public visibility while the pandemic’s death toll continued to climb.
By April 2020, as the United States had already recorded more than 60,000 COVID-related deaths, Fauci was noting the intense media attention surrounding him, according to journals made public by Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a longtime critic of the former federal health official.
“Press still hot and heavy about me. Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me,” Fauci wrote in an April 7, 2020, entry, as coverage of the White House Coronavirus Task Force dominated national news.
In another entry dated May 21, 2020, Fauci described his “national and international fame” as “explosive and really unimaginable,” adding that it was “not hyperbole” to characterize his recognition as global, according to the diary.
At that stage of the crisis, nearly 98,000 Americans had died from COVID-19, and Fauci was participating in extensive meetings tied to the federal pandemic response.
By late June 2020, when daily U.S. COVID cases hit a then-record of 40,000 in one day, Fauci also noted that he had received an invitation to appear on the television competition show “Dancing with the Stars.”
The entries also point to mounting tension between Fauci and the Trump White House. Fauci wrote that “countless” media profiles and his expanding presence in the press were making him “a star that outshines” the president.
Fauci further reflected on his growing public profile by noting that Secret Service officers posted at White House gates had become familiar enough with him to wave his vehicle through security checkpoints without checking his identification.
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.
