RFK Jr was right to confront CNN over Fauci coverage, say network was 'scaring people' during COVID-19

When a massive treasure trove of Anthony Fauci's diary entries and emails was released recently, thanks to Sen. Rand Paul, it caused a tremendous amount of embarrassment for the 85-year-old former public health official.

Fauci came across as a remarkable narcissist, someone obsessed with his own instant and surprising fame. He chronicled each and every media appearance, celebrating anytime a legacy outlet wrote yet another glowing, reverential profile. He spoke excitedly about his friendships with celebrities like Joan Baez and Barbra Streisand, saying that he and Baez were made for each other.

Importantly, he also said completely different things privately than he was saying publicly. He acknowledged in his diary that the lab leak was not only possible, but likely. He admitted that he wanted masks mandated because people were wearing them anyway and the CDC had pushed it. He knew closures weren't working, saying that cases were rising and falling irrespective of policy. He even fretted about potentially contacting COVID-19 at an event that required proof of vaccination. Then went on to demand more vaccine mandates and passports afterward anyway.

ANTHONY FAUCI'S PRIVATE DIARY AND EMAILS SHOW HE KNEW LOCKDOWNS FAILED AND PUSHED MASKS WITHOUT EVIDENCE

Fauci came out looking well, awful, to put it mildly. The only entity that came out looking worse? That same legacy media.

CNN's Jake Tapper is mentioned several times, including sharing multiple dinners. One in October 2020, just before Fauci demanded Americans shut down Thanksgiving. OutKick reached out to Tapper's PR rep to see if that "friendship" impacted his coverage, and despite his public demonstrations of concern over "transparency," they declined to comment.

Another person mentioned? CNN's Dana Bash. Bash, according to Fauci, had texted him to say that he was "a better man" than Rep. Jim Jordan after their heated exchange, then adding that CNN compatriot Wolf Blitzer believed nobody would have blamed Fauci if he'd said "go f— yourself" in response to Jordan's questions.

FAUCI'S DIARY SHOWS HE FED QUESTIONS TO JOURNALISTS, BUILT FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEDIA FIGURES

Bash has essentially ignored this, because as a highly concerned source of journalistic integrity or something, it's important that she never take accountability for anything. She also had current Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on her show Sunday. And took the opportunity to misrepresent how poorly she, CNN, and legacy media performed their jobs during the pandemic.

When asking Kennedy if President Trump deserves the blame for the policies that Fauci recommended, Kennedy brought up that Trump almost immediately wanted lockdowns to end.

"President Trump, as you recall, wanted to end lockdowns," Kennedy said. "I think the thing that did the most damage to our country was the lockdowns, the lockdown that shut down 3.5 million businesses in our country with no due process, no just compensation. All of our churches closed, our schools, and our children are still paying the price for that. And yet we had the worst outcome of any country in the world…We have the highest death rate from COVID of any nation on earth."

That's not entirely accurate, there are other countries with a higher COVID mortality rate. And it's unclear how many of those "COVID deaths" were attributable to the virus itself versus incidental positive tests. But his point is directionally correct, that had Trump ignored Fauci and Deborah Birx, along with the rest of the public health community, and either avoided lockdowns entirely or ended them immediately, he'd have been crucified by the media. Particularly CNN and people like Tapper and Bash.

Just imagine, Fauci on television every single night telling a morally outraged Dana Bash that Trump was ignoring the science and not "following the experts." Every single outcome being blamed on Trump's inexcusable ignorance of The Science. Heck, he followed Fauci's advice and they still did that anyway.

RFK also brought up that Fauci's policies and lockdowns were an unacceptable government overreach, which is also objectively true.

"We need to protect our constitutional rights, that is the primary obligation of our country," Kennedy said. "During COVID, we completely dismantled our constitutional rights. We began censoring people in violation of the First Amendment."

Bash's response? That as a Proud Defender Of The Freedom Of The Journalist Press, she couldn't care less about our constitutional rights if there's a public health crisis.

"Forgive me, but you’re just you’re talking about rights, and I’m asking about a potential public health crisis," Bash said. Yes, Dana, because your rights, especially for free speech, do not disappear because of a public health issue. Maybe she'd know that if she spent more time reading and less time texting Anthony Fauci.

The interview turned even more contentious when RFK brought up that doctors who dissented from Fauci's dictates were demonized or silenced, to which Bash responded, "I really want to move on."

"Of course you want to move on, ’cause you were part of the problem!" Kennedy said.

"No I wasn’t part of the problem!" Bash said, which is of course, false.

"There was absolute press malpractice," Kennedy said. "You weren’t doing your job, and your job is a fierce skepticism toward authority. You weren’t doing that. You were beating up on people who were dissenting."

Again, there is no argument against this. That is inarguably correct. Bash, Tapper, CNN and many others treated Fauci as an infallible god. They were friends with him off camera, because they share the same political views and hatred for Donald Trump. They abandoned the actual core responsibilities of journalism because it would have made their political party look bad, which is an unacceptable outcome. And RFK is right to call them out for it.

He wasn't done there.

"You were scaring people!" Kennedy later said. "Why are you saying that?" Bash shot back.

"Because that was the job of CNN!" Kennedy responded.

"OK stop!" Bash said, angrily.

And again, this is where Bash's act is so tiresome. CNN had a counter up, for years, tracking every single COVID-19 case report, hospitalization report, death report. They were relentless in bringing on a parade of malicious, misinformed "experts" to lie to their audience. Peter Hotez was nearly a nightly guest, despite attacking other experts while being wrong about every single aspect of COVID-19 policy. Same with Leana Wen, who was so committed to dangerous, harmful misinformation that she demanded unvaccinated people be locked in their homes, long after we knew the vaccines were useless against infection and transmission.

RFK's closing argument though, once again perfectly summed up the issues with CNN's fawning worship and promotion of Anthony Fauci.

"That's what you did during COVID," Kennedy said referring to Bash deferring to "experts" and not reading actual scientific studies and data. "Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the expert, was lying about everything, about masks, about the social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID-19.

"[Fauci] was lying, and you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the experts again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of."

Absolutely, completely, utterly correct. CNN, Bash, Tapper, all of them, unquestioningly believed everything Anthony Fauci said, because they have the same political views. That's it. Bash would never consult the expert opinion of someone like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya or Dr. Scott Atlas, even though they are eminently qualified, because they disagree with her politically. It didn't matter that Fauci was obviously and provably wrong then, and it doesn't matter that he's wrong now. He was wrong with the "right" ideology, which is enough to earn permanent protection from the media.

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CNN issued a statement to Mediaite after the interview, displaying a comical lack of self-awareness.

"Asking tough, substantive questions to those in power is the job of every journalist, and Dana did hers incredibly well today. We stand behind Dana, her reporting, and CNN’s overall coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic."

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Ah. You mean the tough questions she never asked Fauci? The tough questions she privately berated Jim Jordan for asking him? It'd be a joke, if what they did wasn't so harmful. Well, it is a joke, it's just that no one's laughing.