Book by Former Dr. Fauci Aide Claims He Mocked His Own COVID Rules for Indoor Dining, Says He Could “Get People to Believe Anything”

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been labeled an ‘egomaniac’ by former White House colleague in a new book, in which he claims the COVID tsar mocked people for following pandemic regulations he implemented.

Brian Morgenstern, a former White House deputy press secretary, discusses his time inside the White House during Donald Trump’s presidency in his book, ‘Vignettes & Vino.’ 

Morgenstern refers to Fauci as ‘awful’ and an ‘egomaniac’ while recalling moments when the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases mocked restrictions he proposed.

‘I vividly recall my blood boiling during an infuriating meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House when Fauci laughed about his own goggles comment, making it clear how cynical he was and the he could get people to believe anything,’ Morgenstern wrote.

‘He went on to laugh about how ‘a**-backwards’ it was that people entered a restaurant wearing a mask, then sat down and conversed with people without a mask.

‘Of course, he wasn’t saying things to that effect publicly, just laughing privately at the American rubes he was fooling.’

According to the book, co-authored with Brian’s wife, Teresa, Fauci would mock COVID-19 restrictions that he created or suggested

Morgenstern: ‘He went on to laugh about how ‘a**-backwards’ it was that people entered a restaurant wearing a mask, then sat down and conversed with people without a mask’

In a July 2020 interview with ABC News medical correspondent Jennifer Ashton, Fauci urged ‘if you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it.’

After a follow-up question of whether eye protection would be formally recommended, Fauci responded that ‘it might, if you really want perfect protection of the mucosal surfaces.’

More criticism of Fauci ensued the following month when he sat without a mask with his friend and wife at the Washington National’s season-opener. 

In August 2022, Fauci joked about having ‘cooked up’ COVID-19 in his kitchen during an interview with friend and colleague Dr. Larry Corey, a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Corey noted that, as they were in Washington state, they were ‘at the epicenter of the initial outbreak’ where WA1, the ancestral model strain that traveled with someone from Wuhan, China to Seattle, was first seen in America.

Fauci piped in with a joke: ‘No, I developed the ancestral model strain. I created it.’

The entire room started to laugh, with Corey responding: ‘That’s right, you let it loose.’

Fauci, 81, drew criticism after appearing at the Washington Nationals 2020 season-opener without his mask, as the Washington D.C. area required mask-wearing outdoors

‘58.9 percent of independent voters believe Dr. Fauci should resign his position and role in leading the government’s COVID-19 response to allow for new leadership,’ a poll by Convention of States Action showed earlier this year.

Fauci, 81, is set to retire this December. He did not respond to a New York Post request for comment.

Morgenstern said he remembers how Fauci introduced the American public to COVID-19 in early 2020.

‘(Fauci) said the virus was nothing to worry about for the American people,’ Morgenstern writes. ‘

‘Then in the months that followed, he said that people should not wear masks and that they were ineffective. 

‘By June or July, he had changed his tune and said everyone should be very concerned and that they should wear multiple masks — and goggles.’

In August, Fauci joked about having cooked up COVID-19 in his kitchen just hours before he was booed by baseball fans as he threw out the first pitch prior to a Seattle Mariners game

Fauci piped in during his discussion with Dr. Larry Corey with a joke: ‘No, I developed the ancestral model strain (of COVID-19). I created it’

In a talk with Jay Stephen Morrison, the senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Fauci said ‘we are not where we need to be’ with COVID-19.

His comments came one day after President Joe Biden said the pandemic is ‘over.’

‘We are much better off now for a number of reasons that you mentioned, but we are not where we need to be if we’re going to be able to quote ‘live with the virus’ because we know we’re not going to eradicate it,’ Fauci said.

The White House then walked back on Biden’s statement, according to CNN: ‘The President’s comments do not mark a change in policy toward the administration’s handling of the virus, and there are no plans to lift the Public Health Emergency.’