Fox News Star Gets Prime Seat at Fauci Grilling After Doc Branded Her a ‘Stooge’

Cable news junkies watching Dr. Anthony Fauci’s congressional testimony on Wednesday morning probably noticed a familiar face: Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

Ingraham was easy to see on the live TV coverage, sitting just a few rows and slightly to the left of the doc as he was grilled about his role in the U.S. Government’s response to COVID-19. Her prominent seating position stood out, considering Fauci made it clear he was not a fan of Ingraham in his newly unearthed COVID diary.

Fauci lumped Ingraham in with “all of the stooges” at Fox News he could not stand in an August 2021 entry, along with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The doctor complained the three hosts “actively” criticized him.

And a year earlier, Fauci jotted down that CNN star Jake Tapper mocked Ingraham in a text message to him.

“Hard to beliee [sic] Paura [sic] Ingraham went to Dartmouth, isn’t it. All of us alumni are very proud,” Tapper wrote, according to Fauci’s diary.

Ingraham responded to Tapper’s text on her show on Monday.

“Of course, objective newsman Tapper ran defense for Fauci the entire pandemic. But in these entries, we see him in all of his mean girl glory,” Ingraham said.

She then called out Tapper and Fauci for having dinner together on multiple occasions in 2020 — including a week after Fauci told Americans to “sacrifice” Thanksgiving.

“When people were told they should limit their socializing in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area, the Tappers had Tony over for dinner on at least two occasions,” Ingraham pointed out.

Fauci’s diary — which was released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on July 25 — revealed Fauci was fixated on media coverage. 

The doctor routinely wrote about the “flattering” stories about him and about his cozy ties to big-time reporters like CNN’s Dana Bash and ex-Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, alongside notes on the rising COVID death toll.

“Press is going wild with me,” Fauci wrote in March 2020, right after speculating he had morphed into the “most famous and talked about person in the country.”

The doctor on Wednesday invoked the Fifth Amendment more than a dozen times at the start of his testimony; you can see Ingraham sitting behind Fauci as he repeatedly declined to answer questions.

Ingraham later stood up when Fauci was asked to turn around and look at the people he “absolutely shamed for saying what we know now to be the truth” about COVID, as Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-NM) put it.

Watch Fauci invoke the Fifth in the clip at the top, and watch Ingraham comment on Tapper and Fauci in the second clip. Both via Fox News.

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