Dr. Fauci during an interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos in 2021 (Photo Credit: ABC News on YouTube)
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s relationship with the mainstream press was once tighter than a surgical glove.
The man who led the U.S. Government’s response to Covid-19 exchanged snickering texts with prominent journalists, asked for advice on combating media “attacks,” and convinced the Washington Post to scrap a story in the early days of the pandemic, according to newly unearthed diary entries.
Fauci’s diary — published on July 25 by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — revealed he was fixated on his press coverage. And his press connections.
The doc jotted down that the media was going “wild” over him and speculated he had morphed into the “most famous and talked about person” in America, right alongside notes on the rising COVID death toll. He also enjoyed multiple dinners with CNN star Jake Tapper, including one “relaxed” supper in October 2020 — a week after he told Americans to “sacrifice” Thanksgiving.
But you wouldn’t know much about Fauci’s cozy ties to the press based on the scant coverage of the diary, outside of Fox News.
If you are looking for some examples of the close relationship he had with mainstream journalists, here are five:
Dana Bash Bashes Republican Lawmaker Over Text
Tapper wasn’t the only CNN anchor Fauci was friendly with.
The doctor wrote on April 17, 2021, Tapper’s State of the Union co-host, Dana Bash, texted about Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). She sent the text two days after Fauci got into a shouting match about Covid restrictions with the Republican lawmaker during a House hearing. Bash was on Team Fauci.
“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,’” Bash texted Fauci, according to his diary.
Fauci wrote the next day, “I received a text from Dana Bash pointing out that Vanity Fair recently had a headline that said: Jim Jordan trips over his own a**hole trying to debate Anthony Fauci.”
Bash interviews Fauci on State of the Union (Photo Credit: CNN on YouTube)
Fauci Spikes WaPo Report on Chinese Gov Strong-Arming WHO Boss
Fauci wrote on January 24, 2020, he was contacted by Washington Post health reporter Lena Sun, who was trying to verify what people in the U.S. Government had told her — that the Chinese government had “got to” World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to “convince him not to declare a [Public Health Emergency of International Concern] since it would harm their reputation.”
The doctor told Sun he “knew nothing of this.”
“I told her that was nonsense and I probably stopped her from writing the story,” Fauci wrote. “She said since I am in all the important meetings that I would know.”
Fauci noted there were more than 800 cases and 26 deaths reported in China in the same diary entry. He also jotted down that China had issued a travel ban for Wuhan.
He wrote in his diary two days later, “There is complete chaos in China now with president Xi Jinping declaring an emergency situation.”
The Washington Post reported the WHO had declared a public health emergency on January 30, the same day the WHO announced it. Sun was one of several reporters on the WaPo byline.
The Doctor Seeks Advice From “Friend” Chuck Todd on Handling ‘Attacks’ From Tucker Carlson
The doctor wrote on July 10, 2021, he had a “really nice conversation” with Chuck Todd, who was still the moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press at the time.
Todd asked him what he thought about an interview the two had just done, and Fauci said he thought it was “absolutely terrific.” He then told Todd he needed some advice.
“I asked him whether he thought that I should pull back from publicly defending myself against the slanderous attacks since that might call more attention to them,” Fauci wrote. “He completely agreed and said that Fox News and people like Tucker Carlson would use anything I say as the theme for their next show.”
Fauci continued, “Chuck is really an excellent journalist and although he must maintain his objectivity and reporting it is very clear that he is really being a friend in understanding the difficult position that I am in.”
His gripe about Carlson was not a one-off.
Fauci wrote several times about his distaste for the then-Fox News star, including in 2022 when he branded Carlson a “total a**hole.”
He also labeled Fox News anchors Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham “stooges” for criticizing him.
An interview with Chuck Todd in 2021 (Photo Credit: NBC News on YouTube)
Fauci Impressed ABC’s George Stephanopoulos
Fauci wrote that Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos texted him right after a July 2020 interview on GMA and said, “Thank you, Tony. So impressive.”
Stephanopoulos was apparently dazzled by how Fauci responded to a Breitbart post President Donald Trump had retweeted, calling him a “fraud.”
“I blew it off saying that I do not tweet or even read tweets,” Fauci wrote, recalling his captivating answer.
He then lamented, “The POTUS is playing a weird game of acting Okay with me in person and saying that our relationship is fine to the press and then retweeting stuff that attacks me. He is a very strange guy.”
A “Very Apologetic” Andrea Mitchell Checks The Doc’s Temperature
Fauci chronicled that MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell called him on the Fourth of July in 2020 and was “very apologetic about not being able to have me on the show since they already booked a couple of governors who were giving exclusives.”
Fauci continued, “I mentioned to her my concern about them keeping me off the air. She was shocked and thought that when I did not come on after requests that it was because I did not want to go on a show.”
The two smoothed things over, and Fauci went on her show several more times over the second half of the year. Fauci wrote that Trump was furious with one appearance he made on Mitchell’s show in September 2020, with Fauci writing that Trump “went on and on about how negative I was.”
You can read the files for yourself by clicking here.
The post 5 Underreported Media Stories from the Fauci Diaries first appeared on Mediaite.
