CNN’s Dana Bash caught sucking-up to Fauci in newly released diaries

CNN’s Dana Bash was singled out as a supporter by a self-obsessed Anthony Fauci in one of the disease doctor’s newly unveiled pandemic-era diary entries.

Fauci, 85, wrote how the State of the Union host reached out following a tense exchange he had with Republican Rep. Jim Jordan during a hearing about the federal government’s response to the pandemic more than a year on, in April 2021.

‘I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I,’ Bash wrote via text at the time, according to the disease doctor.  

Bash also offered a quip from one of her fellow CNN hosts, seemingly to brighten the official’s day.

‘As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply “Mr. Jordan, go f**k yourself,”‘ Bash wrote, according to Fauci.

The next day, Bash texted again – this time to highlight a vulgar Vanity Fair headline that also mocked Jordan’s subcommittee performance.

The correspondence came just months after Bash heralded Fauci as a ‘superhero’ during a December 2020 State of the Union appearance. 

Other entries showed Fauci’s simultaneous obsession with keeping tabs on what was said about him in COVID-centric news coverage all the way from the pandemic’s outset until his retirement in late 2022. 

The State of the Union host offered Anthony Fauci some kind words via text as the disease expert face criticism for lockdowns still in effect after more than a year in April 2021

Bash reached out to designate the doctor ‘a better man than I’ following his tense interaction with a frustrated House Republican during an April 15, 2021, hearing about federal government’s pandemic response

The entries, penned over the course of more than two years from the pandemic’s outset to late 2022, were released by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul over the weekend. 

Paul has previously accused Fauci of dodging past commitments to testify about COVID-19’s origins and providing funding for laboratories in China where workers have manipulated unrelated viruses in experiments. 

Fauci has not been convicted of or proven to have committed any crimes. The emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019 is the subject of two main theories – one being a laboratory-related incident and the other natural zoonotic transmission, from an animal to person.    

The entries, over the course of some 1,100 pages, appear to show Fauci becoming increasingly infatuated with his newfound celebrity, despite his status as the director of the National Insтιтute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  

‘Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washintgton [sic] 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,’ he wrote in March 2020, just days into the crisis. 

Within a few weeks, Fauci was fawning over a ‘big front page article abut [sic] me appeared in the Washington Post.’

‘Very flattering,’ he wrote in May 2020. ‘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 person in the world.’

Two days later, Fauci wrote: ‘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!!’ 

 The diary entries persisted until December 2022, at which point Fauci complained, ‘It is clear (I have not been reporting it every day) that the far, extreme right and Qanon literally hate me.’ He called it a career that month.

Jordan had grilled Fauci about when Americans would be ‘get[ting] their freedoms back’ after more than a year of COVID-19 health mitigation measures during the hearing the year before.

Warning of the potential consequences of a more prolonged lockdown after more than a year, Jordan asked: ‘What metrics, what measures, what has to happen before Americans get more freedoms?’

“Right now, we have about 60,000 infections a day which is a very large risk for resurge. We’re not talking about liberties. We’re talking about a pandemic that has killed 560,000 Americans. That’s what we’re talking about,’ Fauci replied.

Jordan then asked for a more ‘specific measurement that will have to be attained…so that Americans know they’re going to get their liberties back and be able to move on with their lives.’

Fauci said that the number of daily infections would have to fall ‘well below 10,000 per day’ and the ‘vast majority of Americans’ would have to be vaccinated’.

‘The reason I can’t give you a precise number is because I’m not 100% sure how many people will want to be vaccinated,’ Fauci maintained.

At a point, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California interrupted to tell the Ohio Republican, ‘Shut your mouth.’

The entries were published by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who says Fauci duped Congress and signed off on overseas projects that helped spread the virus. Fauci has not been charged with any crimes and denies all wrongdoing

Bash cohosts State of the Union with Jake Tapper, who cultivated a ‘friendship’ with Fauci, the latter wrote.

‘Terrific couple. Friendship building,’ the doctor wrote of Tapper and his wife Jen after having dinner at the couple’s home in DC in July 2020. 

‘Relaxed, good time. Jake clearly believes that Trump is totally nuts,’ wrote after another dinner that October.

Shortly after lockdowns began, on April 14, 2020, Fauci recalled how Tapper  ‘wanted to make sure’ an interview the two had done on CNN two days before ‘did not cause me any problems’. He called to make sure, Fauci wrote.

The diary entries are being released ahead of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing slated for Wednesday, where Fauci will testify. 

Moreover, Fauci received a pardon from then-President Joe Biden at the end of the latter’s tenure in office. 

The ‘full and unconditional’ pardon cleared the former White House medical advisor for ‘any offenses against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014’ through the date of the pardon.

Paul, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, has alleged that Fauci misled Congress and signed off on funding for experiments overseas that helped spread the virus.