Trump's 'Rambling' Derails Key Public Health Meeting as Top Official in Prez's Administration Is Forced to Take Over

Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed in his personal diary that he endured "disturbingly rambling discussions" with Donald Trump during the COVID-19 outbreak, with the president seemingly "not understanding" the pandemic, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 85, wrote about alleged encounters with Trump, 80, during the president's first term as the coronavirus outbreak exploded across the U.S.

Longtime Fauci critic Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) subpoenaed the infectious disease expert to testify before a July 29 Senate hearing on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, ahead of which the lawmaker released more than 1,000 pages from the doctor's private journal.

In their initial Situation Room meeting, Fauci claimed Trump treated him like a star, writing, "The President came in, and the first thing he said as he looked at me was: 'Anthony, you are really a famous guy.'"

He added that the president let him field most of the questions from aides during the 20-minute session in January 2020, just as the outbreak in Wuhan, China, was gaining worldwide attention.

In a March 27, 2020, entry of the diary, Fauci noted things had rapidly degenerated.

"Very laborious press conference where the POTUS rambled on," he said. "He wasted the opportunity to just focus on the relief package and went into his diatribe against previous administrations."

The following day, the doctor wrote, "AMAZING interaction with POTUS…I led the discussions since the POTUS kept referring to me."

However, he claimed the president's obsession with television ratings threatened to sidetrack the COVID-19 discussion.

"It was a disturbingly rambling discussion since he kept talking about TV ratings, and HC [Hydroxychloroquine], and influenza and virtually everything else as I was trying to keep him on track (with the help of the VP)," he wrote, with a reference to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

"I insisted through the rambling and lack of attention span that the POTUS explicitly say that this is NOT a quarantine," he wrote in his journal.

By August 2020, Fauci alleged that the president's attention to the situation had completely unraveled and that he was "throwing around the f--- word."

"He's desperate and still does not understand the pandemic. Very interesting encounter," the doctor wrote in an August 4, 2020, entry.

Three days later, Fauci claimed, "POTUS acting even more erratically. Keeps insisting that increased case numbers are due only to increased testing, ignoring the increases in percent positive, hospitalizations and deaths (>1000/day)."

Trump blasted Fauci hours ahead of his Senate testimony, claiming his own COVID-19 plan was far superior to that of the one the disease expert had with former President Joe Biden. He further accused Fauci of repeatedly pushing the theory that COVID-19 most likely originated at a live-animal wet market, rather than from the Wuhan lab.

"His ideas were CRAZY! Also, I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China," Trump fumed.

The president asserted that Fauci "made too many bad calls, like on MASKS," and said he tried to sideline the doctor and keep him out of key decision-making.

"In any event I didn’t let him shut the Country down, although he wanted to," the president wrote. "I went the Federalist way, and let the governors decide. The Republican governors did a much better job than the Dumocrats. Fauci was largely taken out of play, and then along came Sleepy Joe Biden, who made Fauci a ‘King!'”