Despite his decades-long career at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Anthony Fauci’s rise to fame basically happened overnight when he became the face of the government’s response to the COVID pandemic beginning in March 2020.
Fauci seemed to lap up the attention he received from just about every major media outlet and the public at large, and now we know just how much he adored being in the spotlight – and how it may have influenced his judgement – thanks to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Over the weekend, Paul published more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s ‘diaries’ from his time at NIH and as a White House advisor in both the first Trump and Biden administrations. The intimate entries chronicle his day-to-day activities and musings and paint the picture of a man who was seemingly more concerned with his fame and image than the fate of the country in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis.
While the journals document how Fauci privately ruled out a wet market in Wuhan, China, as the source of the pandemic as early as January 2020 despite his years of subsequent claims to the contrary, some of the most shocking revelations have to do with his cozy relationship with prominent members of the media.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of The Counterrevolution, to discuss the unprofessional love affair between Fauci and the press.
Media Marvel
Fauci’s obsession with fame began in the earliest days of the pandemic, according to his own telling. On March 22, 2020 – just days into President Donald Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force releasing the official “15 Days to Slow the Spread” guidance – the doctor was marveling at the media coverage he had received.
“Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washintgton Post [sic] yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic. I am trying in several articles and on TV to clarify that the POTUS is tsalking [sic] about hope for therapies although there are no good data, while I must stick to the science and so fundamentally we are approaching this from different, but not conflicting standpoints,” he wrote.
On May 21, 2020, Fauci recorded the latest pandemic figures and documented his “very good press conference” following the day’s White House coronavirus task force meeting. He also boasted about his notoriety.
“Big front page article abut [sic] me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable person in the world,” Fauci wrote. “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.”
Just two days later, in a May 23, 2020, entry, Fauci speculated that the White House was none too pleased with his newfound fame. “Apparently the WH is very upset that I am being profiled and it looks like I am putting down the POTUS and becoming a star that outshines him. The press is playing into this as is the tweet storm. Very stressful!!” he claimed.
To give you a sense of just how power-hungry Fauci was, Megyn pointed to media commentator Tom Elliott’s analysis of the dairies on his Substack, which found the the word “award” appeared 80 times in 1,141 pages, “hero” 49 times, “Instagram” 36 times, and “selfie” 19 times, while there were 641 entries labeled “PRESS.”
Meanwhile, Elliott discovered the terms “peer review,” “meta-analysis,” “risk-benefit,” “learning loss,” and “mental health” appeared a grand total of zero times. “N95,” “seroprevalence,” and “cost-benefit” each made the dance once; and “cloth mask,” “school closure,” and “natural immunity” got a whopping two mentions each.
Fauci’s Famous Friends
And then there was the running commentary about how chummy Fauci was with various well-known media figures. CNN’s Jake Tapper appears repeatedly in the private diary entries as Fauci noted phone calls, text messages, and even dinners at the Tappers’ Washington, D.C., home that he characterized as “friendship building.”
The budding bromance apparently led Tapper to text Fauci disparaging things about fellow broadcaster Laura Ingraham in April 2020. “After my Laursa [sic] Ingraham hit, Jake Tapper (CNN) texted me saying sarcastically: Hard to beliee [sic] Paura [sic] Ingraham went to Dartmouth, isn’t it. All of us alumni are very proud,” Fauci chronicled.
Three months later, in late July, Fauci noted that he gave Tapper “some questions to ask” then-Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union where Fauci accused Giroir of “talking bullshit about testing.”
Megyn condemned “stomach-turning” behavior. “What the hell? This is a federal official whom [Tapper] should be cross-examining and pressing and cynical of and pessimistic about. That’s what you get paid to do. Not be chum chum… All of it is so stomach-turning,” she noted.
After Fauci’s heated exchange with Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in April 2021, he wrote that he received a glowing text messasge from CNN anchor Dana Bash. “Dana Bash sent me a text: “I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I…. As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply “Mr. Jordan, go f— yourself,”” he recalled.
Megyn considered Bash’s offense just as bad. “This is Dana Bash – who is still interviewing him on her show as though she is an objective news person – texting him this behind the scenes,” she lamented.
From Tapper diminishing Ingraham’s intelligence to The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson condescendingly likening Paul to a “dry cleaner” in an April 5, 2021, column that Fauci saved in his notes, Hanson said the exchanges and behavior reek of arrogance.
“There was also a class element. It was all of these legacy media people who had these degrees, they felt, from impressive places and this sense of self,” he noted. “Tapper [saying], ‘Who let this person into our school?’ And Rand Paul is a dry cleaning person. What’s wrong with a dry cleaning person? They are very important people, but he… is so condescending and he has contempt for people. And it was all part of that.”
The Timing
The embarrassing document dump comes days before Fauci is scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after being subpoenaed by Chairman Paul on Wednesday.
Fauci is protected by a controversial preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden for any past wrongdoing, but Megyn noted it wouldn’t apply to any lies told under oath in the present-day. “New lies would expose him for sure… We’ll be hoping and praying that he says something new that’s false for which he can be indicted,” she said.
While Megyn said Fauci “got the greatest pardon you could possibly get under Joe Biden” that she said would essentially allow him to admit to any prior wrongs without the fear of prosecution, she believes he will play it safe. “He is going to be super careful, or he is going to forget everything, or he is just going to say on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment, I choose not to say anything if he thinks he’s on quicksand,” she speculated.
And if all else fails? “I imagine he is going to be feeling foot loose and fancy free and expecting all of his media buddies to cover for him,” Megyn concluded.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hanson by tuning in to episode 1,368 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.