Tony's Diary Package — page 162

0,000/69,000 yunger researchers would not present to him. This defeats the purpose of the visit, which was to thank the young researchers. We thought that we had it all worked out with Francis greeting the VP and I and John Mascola take over. Not so easy. Francis calls me in distress late that evening and says that he looked at his recent message to NIH community that says everyone should wear a mask on campus, every place and at all times. Therefore, we have to disinvite the VP. Much stress. Marc Short came to the rescue with a plan to do this without creating a shit-storm. We cancelled the visit to VRC, will bring John, Barney and Francis to White House and have the TF meeting concentrating on work at the VRC where John and I will explain our vaccine efforts for COVID. (WTF???). All this because the VP listened to the POTUS and would not wear a mask. That night I did CNN with Cuomo (see below). We spoke about the new models showing 3000 deaths pe day and about 134,000 total deaths if we back off on mitigation the way the POTUS is pushing. During the interview, Chris gave a wonderful explanation to viewers how close and good friends we are and how I checked in on him every night including weekends for weeks during his COVID illness. Never saw something like that on TV. He praised me such that Megan (who was watching live) said it almost brought her to tears. PRESS: CNN with Chris Cuomo May 5, 2020 - Global - 3,500,000/240,000; USA - 1,200,000/69,000 OMG! This is really getting nutsy. Sally Quinn evidently wrote a book some time ago about a character that is me: https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/05/05/sally-quinn-modeled-the-erotic-hero-of-her1991-bestseller-on-anthony-fauci/ The Maureen Dowd sends me an e-mail: "I can see it"