How will history remember Anthony Fauci?
Anthony Fauci once claimed that an attack on him is an attack on the entire field of rational, empirical inquiry.
“It is very easy to pick out an individual and make them a target,” he told CBS’ Face the Nation in 2021, “but you’re talking about systems. You’re talking about the CDC; you’re talking about the FDA; you’re talking about science in general.”
The publication of Fauci’s private diary revealed a man consumed not with reaching objective truth, but with politics, bureaucratic processes, and most of all, his own image.
“Big front page article about me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering,” he wrote as COVID-19 deaths surged. “It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.” He bragged about Joan Baez texting him about her outfits and Julia Roberts fawning over him. He wrote about holding up his cellphone to his Alexa so that Barbra Streisand could hear he was listening to her music. She “absolutely loved it,” he wrote.
“The diaries showed a man completely in love with himself in an extraordinary and narcissistic way,” says Matt Ridley, a science writer who has investigated COVID-19’s origins.
The revelation of Fauci’s self-obsession is gossipy and embarrassing, but it’s not the most important takeaway from his personal diaries, which were written on a federally owned computer and released to the public by Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) in July of 2026.
Fauci’s diary also revealed that he was seeking cash prizes by prodding scientists whose work he funded to nominate him for prestigious awards.
“Every person in the field receiving NIAID support understood that Fauci ran NIAID as his personal fiefdom,” says Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and longtime Fauci critic. This is also damning of his character. But it’s not the main thing to focus on.
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