President Trump orders signage installed at Smithsonian Institution warning of ‘inaccurate’ history
Amid controversy over how American history is represented, President Trump has ordered warning signs posted at the Smithsonian Institution.
WASHINGTON – Dr. Anthony Fauci called President Donald Trump “out of control,” a “true embarrassment” and a “stupid” in a personal diary while working as the nation’s top infectious disease expert to fight the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
At the same time, Mr. Fauci reveled in his own celebrity and the extensive media coverage that turned a lifelong bureaucrat into a national star and later a villain for many.
The evolution of Mr. Fauci’s relationship with Mr. Trump, his eventual animosity toward the president, and his surprise at his own personal stature are revealed in the more than 1,100 pages of diary Mr. Fauci kept as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a longtime Fauci critic, released the documents ahead of Fauci’s scheduled July 29 subpoenaed appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs.
As the pandemic raged on, Fauci repeatedly accused President Trump in his diary of not taking scientific advice on the pandemic seriously as he pushed to reopen from lockdown for political reasons in the run-up to the 2020 election. USA TODAY is quoting the diary verbatim, including typos.
“Trump is spiraling out of control as he pushes to open the country and restore the economy by Election Day,” Fauci wrote on May 22, 2020. “He is getting desperate. This is all about re-election.”
On October 15, 2020, less than three weeks before the election, Fauci wrote, “As we get closer to the election and we move into cooler weather, it is inevitable that we will see an increase in cases and a spike. Trump is spewing nonsense on the campaign trail. He is truly out of control. It is truly embarrassing.”
Fauci wrote of Trump: “He is a very strange man.”
The diaries released from Fauci’s diary were not handwritten but stored electronically on a computer and spanned from December 2019 to December 2022. Paul obtained the diary through a subpoena as part of the commission’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
President Trump first embraced Fauci in the months after the pandemic hit the United States in early 2020, during Trump’s final year in office. He often gave Fauci the opportunity to speak at news conferences behind the White House podium. But relations between the two sides soured as the pandemic dragged on, with President Trump publicly attacking Fauci’s credibility in the weeks before the 2020 election.
Fauci wrote in his diary on July 28, 2020, “The president is playing this weird game of pretending to be okay with me to my face, telling the press that our relationship is okay, and then retweeting things that attack me. He’s a very strange man.”
A key point of contention between the two men was Trump’s disapproval of messages pushed by Fauci and White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Deborah Birx during television appearances.
“The president is acting even more erratically. He continues to claim that the rise in cases is due solely to increased testing, while ignoring the rise in positivity rates, hospitalizations, and deaths (more than 1,000 people per day). He has been inconsistent in his messages to me about whether he wants me on TV or not,” Fauci wrote in his diary on August 8, 2020.
In the same entry, Fauci said he asked White House press secretary Alyssa Farah about “WH’s side” when going for a television interview.
“She wanted me to be on the show every day and every night. But the president kept saying the doctors were contradicting him, and he’s so impulsive that when he saw or heard about the contradictions, he got furious and said Birx shouldn’t be on TV or Fauci shouldn’t be on TV.”
A month later, in a diary entry on September 13, 2020, Fauci wrote that President Trump called him and “started criticizing” him about an interview Fauci had given with MSNBC.
“He said, ‘What happened’ made me negative because he had good chemistry with John Roberts (FOX) on Thursday. I tried to explain to him that the whole message wasn’t all negative. What I really meant was that if we don’t strengthen public health measures like masks, distancing and crowding, we risk a population surge in ND, SD, MT and other states.”
Fauci said the call ended on a “friendly note,” but added: “It was clear he didn’t want me to do this anymore.”
President Trump refutes Fauci’s criticism in diary
President Trump addressed Fauci’s diary and criticism of him during an appearance on Fox News on July 28. “He wanted to shut everything down, and I didn’t,” Trump said. “If I had followed his advice, the whole country would have shut down.”
Trump added that he is “not a believer” in Fauci and accused the former NIAID director of changing mask advice during the pandemic. “During that time, I lost a lot of respect for him, but I inherited him. He’s been there since the 1980s.”
Fauci remained NIAID director during the Biden administration, but will step down at the end of 2022 after serving seven presidents over 40 years. Throughout his diary, Fauci highlighted the many front-page stories and television profiles that made him famous during the pandemic.
“The press about me is still hot and heavy,” he wrote on April 7, 2020.
On May 21, 2020, Fauci wrote, “A big front page article about me was published in the Washington Post. What an honor.” “The circumstances of my national and international fame are explosive and truly unimaginable. It is no exaggeration to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in this country, and one of the most famous people in the world.”
“There are countless profiles of me in multiple media outlets. I’m too busy to even read everything that’s being written about me…seriously. Even though I’m stealing the spotlight, the president seems obsessed with me.”
In the same entry, Fauci added of Trump: “We have a very unique and interesting relationship.”
“What an idiot!!”
But Fauci’s criticism of Trump would later expand beyond the president’s efforts to combat the coronavirus. “First presidential debate tonight. Horrible ‘st show’,” Fauci wrote after Trump held his first presidential debate with Democratic candidate Joe Biden on September 29.
“Mr. Trump was embarrassed and constantly interrupted Mr. Biden’s remarks, bullying, gibberish, and lying throughout,” Fauci continued. “Host Chris Wallace couldn’t control him. Trump refused to condemn white supremacists, and when asked about the ‘Proud Boys,’ Trump essentially endorsed them by saying, ‘Stop and stand by.’ Oh, and he misquoted me saying I was against masks. He also said I praised him for saving lives by banning travel to China.”
In his Aug. 31, 2020 diary, Fauci accused Trump of “inciting violence” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, and said the president was buying into the right-wing QAnon group’s false claims about COVID-19-related deaths.
“QAnon claims all the other deaths have nothing to do with COVID-19. The president loves this and tweets that Fauci and Birx shut down the country for just 9,000 deaths. What an idiot!!” Fauci wrote.
In a June 6, 2021 diary entry, months after President Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Fauci complained about “vicious attacks” against him from the former president and the political right.
“Just recently, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called for my removal from office. What an amazing coward he is. The entire far-right Republican group in the House and Senate has completely sold their souls to former President Trump, who continues to lie endlessly.”
X Contact Joey Garrison at @joeygarrison.
