Actress Patricia Heaton, best known for her role on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci was reveling in celebrity status while Americans endured COVID-19 lockdowns, reacting Monday to newly released diary entries from the former White House chief medical advisor.
“So we were all shut down and Fauci was exulting in his fame…” Ms. Heaton wrote in a Monday morning post on X, responding to a thread from Grabien founder Tom Elliott that tallied how often certain words appeared in Dr. Fauci’s diary. Mr. Elliott’s count found terms like “peer review” and “meta-analysis” never appeared, while “award,” “hero” and “selfie” showed up dozens of times, according to the tally.
The reaction came after Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released more than 1,100 pages of journal entries Dr. Fauci kept from December 2019 through December 2022, spanning his entire tenure managing the federal pandemic response.
The entries repeatedly show Fauci reflecting on his sudden celebrity. In a May 21, 2020, entry, he wrote that he had become “the most famous and talked about person in the country,” adding that President Trump “seems to be enamored of me even though I am taking the spotlight away from him,” according to CBS News, which reviewed the release.
The diary also documents Dr. Fauci’s tensions with Mr. Trump and with Mr. Paul himself. Dr. Fauci described the president at one point as acting “erratically” and privately called him an “idiot” over public COVID-19 death figures, per the entries. Dr. Fauci also wrote that Mr. Paul was among those spreading conspiracy theories tying him to the virus’s origin in Wuhan, China.
Mr. Paul, who has long investigated the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said the journals reflected “a blatant violation” and “a betrayal of the public trust.” He also alleged Dr. Fauci directed staff to destroy federal records, a claim he has said he intends to pursue during Wednesday’s hearing.
Dr. Fauci is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee after Mr. Paul subpoenaed him, capping what is expected to be a contentious hearing on the pandemic’s origins and the federal response.
This article was constructed with the assistance of artificial intelligence and published by a member of The Washington Times’ AI News Desk team. The contents of this report are based solely on The Washington Times’ original reporting, wire services, and/or other sources cited within the report. For more information, please read our AI policy or contact Steve Fink, Director of Artificial Intelligence, at sfink@washingtontimes.com
The Washington Times AI Ethics Newsroom Committee can be reached at aispotlight@washingtontimes.com.
