Finally: ABC, NBC Only Decide to Cover Fauci Diaries Ahead of Senate Hearing

Since Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released on Saturday nearly 2,000 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diaries that delivered one bombshell after another about how he handled the coronavirus pandemic, ABC and NBC had yet to say a word on the leading morning or evening shows. However, that changed Wednesday morning with stories explaining away his behavior ahead of what became an explosive Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

ABC’s Good Morning America only mustered a partial segment tallying 89 seconds, starting with co-host Robin Roberts announcing Fauci was “set to testify on Capitol Hill” for “a grilling by longtime critic Senator Rand Paul over his role in handling the COVID pandemic.”

D.C.-based correspondent Jay O’Brien also said it’d “be a fiery hearing” with Paul going after “Fauci, 85-years-old, once the nation’s top infectious disease expert who retired in 2022.”

He added Paul has “accused Fauci of everything from misleading the COVID — mishandling the COVID response, to misleading the public about COVID’s origins, to even lying to Congress, all of which Fauci strenuously denies” with his attorney calling Paul’s behavior a “years-long public crusade.”

Incredibly, O’Brien seemed to cast doubt on the veracity of the diaries: “Ahead of this hearing, Paul releasing more than one thousand pages worth of what he says are diary excerpts that Fauci wrote in the early days of the pandemic.”

O’Brien did read the infamous January 2020 entry voicing support for the pandemic having originated from the Wuhan lab, but argued this matched Fauci’s public comments:

[Fauci] says it’s “not the source, but the amplifier” of the virus, something the senator accuses Fauci of never saying publicly although the doctor later said that in a public interview or something similar....Fauci, remember, has a preemptive pardon from former President Biden over concerns, Biden said, of possible political prosecution[.]

Fact-check: Pants on fire.

Grabien’s Tom Elliott noted Fauci went around to tamp down on others voicing these concerns, including with the CIA:

Further, Fauci was heavily involved in a now-infamous article in Nature Medicine by supposedly leading scientists to declare the virus came from a wet market with the lab-leak theory unlikely:

Fauci’s media allies also denounced those invoking the possibility of a lab leak:

Even in 2024, Fauci said the science “weighs more heavily” toward a wet market origin: 

And during the hearing, Paul showed a montage of Fauci arguing on CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NewsNation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in favor of the wet market origin.

Over on NBC’s Today, senior Washington correspondent and fill-in co-host Hallie Jackson cracked open the network’s blackout by declaring: “Fauci, who helped lead the U.S. response to COVID, is appearing in front of a Senate committee, a hearing that is expected to be contentious after the public release of entries from Dr. Fauci’s personal journal.”

As part of a segment tallying two minutes and 50 seconds, White House correspondent Monica Alba began by saying Fauci — who “became household name during the pandemic” — now has “his private reflection...gaining attention after a Republican Senator posted them online as part of an ongoing probe into the origins of the virus, all setting the stage for what is expected to be a fiery hearing today on Capitol Hill.”

Like with ABC (see above) and CBS did (see here), Alba refused to go below the surface in Fauci’s narcissism and his close ties to the media. She also peddled the false claim about Fauci never having dismissed the lab-leak theory (click “expand”):

ALBA: New revelations this morning from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal journal, published by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is clashed with the former infectious disease expert for years.

FAUCI [on 07/20/21]: [I]f anyone is lying here, senator, it is you.

ALBA: Most notably, over whether COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China, or came from a market in Wuhan featuring exotic animals.

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): We put the evidence into the public sphere. So, I would just suggest that he tell the truth, and if he tells the truth, he has no liability.

ALBA: In January of 2020, weeks before the world shut down, Fauci wrote, “Now we know the market was not the source., it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to human.” In the past, Fauci has said he was open to the lab-leak theory.

FAUCI [on NBC’s Meet the Press, 11/27/22]: I have a completely open mind about that, despite people saying that I don’t. 

ALBA: Still, Senator Paul posting he’ll be asking Fauci “under subpoena” about what he calls “the COVID cover-up.”

On the flip side, she did go further than ABC’s O’Brien on Fauci celebrating his levels of fame and anti-Trump punditry (click “expand”):

Fauci, in the more than 1,100 release pages, also reflecting on his newfound fame, including conversations with celebrities like Barbara Streisand, who asked about vaccines and Julia Roberts, who called him her personal hero. Fauci writing, “It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous, and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable.”

Throughout the entries, Fauci makes his feelings about President Trump known, calling him a “true embarrassment” and saying he was “spewing nonsense” in the weeks before the 2020 election shortly after the President had been hospitalized for COVID, and when Mr. Trump said he was “considering firing” Fauci.

To see the relevant transcripts from July 29, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).