Fauci’s Private COVID Diary Is Absolutely Revolting

Anthony Fauci’s newly released diary is supposed to be a behind-the-scenes record of the most consequential public-health crisis of our lifetime. Instead, far too much of it reads like a sociopathic nerd’s quest to be crowned homecoming queen.

Released by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul as part of his ongoing COVID investigation—and just days before Fauci’s scheduled July 29 testimony—the file is actually titled “Tony’s Diary.” That name is almost too perfect. Because the entries do not just document meetings and medical data, they detail all his television hits, newspaper profiles, famous friends, and his not-so-humble bragging about the scam that fooled a nation.

In one entry, Fauci wrote that a Washington Post profile about him was “very flattering.” He then marveled that his national and international fame was “explosive,” declaring himself perhaps the most famous and talked-about person in the country. He even noted that President Trump seemed “enamored” with him despite Fauci taking away the spotlight. This appeared on the same page as pandemic death totals.

Priorities, apparently.

The diary also undercuts Fauci’s later insistence that he “had nothing to do” with closing schools. Of course, anyone who paid attention in 2020 knew that he was not a passive scientist offering neutral observations from a laboratory, but… he’s been making other claims on cable news recently.

His diary reveals the truth.

Fauci recorded calling New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and convincing him to close schools, bars and restaurants. He also described a similar conversation with the chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, after which California moved toward closing schools and businesses. He wrote it all with the unmistakable satisfaction of a man documenting his own influence.

Dear Diary: Today I shut down New York and California. Then people honked and thanked me.

That tone matters because the decisions he was celebrating were not abstract entries in a policy memo. They detonated inside actual families.

My mother’s breast-cancer surgery was delayed during the lockdowns. What should have been prompt treatment was postponed. Her cancer became metastatic and terminal. She fought for nearly six years, far longer than doctors initially expected, and died at 56 while I was 38 weeks pregnant.

So forgive me if I am not charmed by Fauci’s notes about his flattering profiles.

Nor am I impressed by his apparent fascination with becoming Trump’s foil. At first, Trump was “enamored” with him. Later, as the relationship deteriorated, Fauci wrote about the administration trying to discredit “the most credible scientist in the world”—meaning himself. Elsewhere, he described Trump as “crazy,” “desperate,” “an idiot” and “a true embarrassment.”

The diary increasingly reads like the origin story Fauci hoped future biographers would use: Brilliant doctor battles reckless president, becomes global icon, saves civilization.

Except the people who lived through his policies remember a much messier story.

We remember loved ones dying alone. We remember funerals without embraces. We remember small businesses destroyed while massive corporations carried on. We remember patients being told their supposedly “elective” procedures would simply have to wait.

And now we know that, while all of that was happening, Fauci was clipping articles about himself and marveling at his fame.