Dr. Brett Giroir, a former assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration, criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday over recently released diary entries from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking to NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill,” Giroir expressed shock at what he described as Fauci’s “unabashed narcissism,” pointing to diary passages where Fauci noted his fame amid the crisis. “I’d like to see honesty and transparency and I’d like Tony to come clean with all the things that he’s really been caught in contradictions,” Giroir said.

The criticism comes just days before Fauci is scheduled for a challenging Senate hearing on Wednesday, July 29, 2026. The hearing follows Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul’s release last weekend of more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s private diary entries dating back to the beginning of the pandemic. Paul alleges the diaries reveal discrepancies between Fauci’s public statements and private views on the virus’s origins.

Fauci’s diaries reportedly reference his daily media appearances and include notes on news coverage, such as a “very flattering” Washington Post article from spring 2020. In one entry dated May 21, 2020, Fauci wrote, “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 person in the world.”

Giroir described Fauci’s focus on personal fame during a time when thousands were dying as “really kind of sickening,” though he cautioned against making the matter overly sensational.

Sources