Dr. Fauci Fumed About Fox News ‘Stooges’ Like Tucker Carlson in COVID Diary: ‘What a Total A**hole!!’

(Photos via: Mariam Zuhaib for AP Photo and Fox News)
Dr. Anthony Fauci complained about critical coverage he received from Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson while leading the government’s response to Covid-19, according to newly unearthed diary entries.
The doc’s diary was published on Saturday by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Fauci comes across as a media-obsessed wannabe celebrity in his personal journal, noting “flattering” coverage from outlets like The Washington Post right alongside stats on the rising Covid death toll.
He also took notice of unflattering coverage. Fauci vented in an August 2022 entry Carlson was doing a “5 to 10 minute discussion tearing me down” and making the “usual accusations and belittling the people who are supporting me.”
Fauci capped it off by writing, “What a total a**hole!!”
And two years earlier in August 2020, Fauci jotted down “Far right and Fox News continuing to attack me. Tucker Carlson calling me a ‘Fraud’ and a ‘hypocritical buffoon.'”
He took issue with other Fox News hosts as well.
In July 2021, Fauci wrote Fox News star Laura Ingraham and Carlson were “relentless” in their “attacks” on him, along with “other nut cakes” like Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA).
The doctor complained a month earlier Fox News “continues to come after me by making false accusations” and lamented “they just do not want to stop harassing me.”
And in an August 2021 diary entry where he branded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) a “complete disgrace” for “blocking the local authorities from mandating masks in various locations,” Fauci said the governor had been getting together with “all of the stooges at Fox News (Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham)” to “actively criticize” him.
“This is an obviously calculated plan of disparaging me and any other scientists (but focusing heavily on me) that speak up against their crazy strategy,” Fauci continued. “I am convinced even more that this is part of the total dystopia going on in certain elements of the country and it is all linked to ‘The Big Lie’ involving the election and the denial of January 6. I really am worried more about the country then about myself since if this goes on I fear that our democracy is in dire danger.”
The diary entries about Fox News stand in contrast to his notes about CNN and MS NOW.
Fauci wrote about a few meals he enjoyed with CNN star Jake Tapper, including one “relaxed” supper with Tapper and his wife in October 2020. One week earlier, Fauci had suggested Americans “sacrifice” spending time with their family and friends at Thanksgiving.
Fauci had a good relationship with at least one Fox News reporter, though. He wrote about a “very nice phone call” he had with anchor Chris Wallace in October 2021, two months before Wallace left the channel.
“[Wallace] called me asking some medical advice about a trip that he wants to take to Oxford to lecture at the Oxford Union,” Fauci wrote. “I went over the pros and cons and risk benefit of making such a trip. In the course of the conversation he empathized greatly with me about the attacks that I’m under by the far right and he fully understands what is going on.”
You can read the files for yourself by clicking here.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
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