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Former chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci was keenly aware of the media’s interest in him early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, and considered some of the attention “flattering,” according to diary entries released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Over the weekend, Paul published more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s diary entries as well as an article about Fauci that the doctor had saved. In one entry, he discussed how he sought to use his media appearances to communicate what was known about the coronavirus at the time.
“Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washintgton Post 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 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,” Fauci wrote on March 22, 2020.
By a May 21, 2020, diary entry, Fauci had become very aware of his heightened profile and considered some of the attention “flattering.”
“Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world,” wrote Fauci.
In a May 23, 2020, diary entry, Fauci wrote that the White House was “upset” with him for receiving attention from the press.
“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 wrote.
The diary entries also revealed some of Fauci’s correspondence, including with legendary singer Barbra Streisand, a fellow Brooklyn native. In one letter, Streisand expressed her appreciation for his “constant guidance, patience and reassurance.”
Further diary entries indicate that they kept in contact, speaking over the phone. Streisand apparently reached out to Fauci directly for medical advice, including whether she and her husband James Brolin should get COVID-19 boosters.
The diary entries end in December 2022, with Fauci writing in the final entry, “It is clear (I have not been reporting it every day) that the far, extreme right and Qanon literally hate me.”
Following his retirement from federal work, Fauci has discussed the negative impacts of the attention placed on him and his family. When appearing before the House in 2024, he became emotional while sharing the type of threats his family had received.
“There have been everything from harassments by emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters,” Fauci told Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “There have been credible death threats, leading to the arrests of two individuals — and ‘credible death threats’ means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me, and it’s required my having Protective Services essentially all the time.”
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