I Interviewed the Fauci Fanboy. I Actually Adored Him.
(Don't get me wrong; if it was a debate, I'm pretty sure I'd have walked away with the trophy. Also he might disagree. But I still like the guy a lot.)
***Wednesday is typically for paid subs, but this was a great convo I didn’t want anyone to miss.***
Last week, I wrote a Substack post about Dr. Craig Spencer, the “Fauci disciple” who crashed the CHD conference. My piece was packed with the typical snark and side commentary most of you come here for—plus more than a few (well-deserved, I believed) digs at Dr. Spencer personally.
I called him a Good Samaritan (sarcastically), described him as “a man who wears institutional arrogance like cologne,” and nominated him for an imaginary Least Self-Aware Person on the Planet Award.
Forgiving, I was not.
To my great shock and delight, after several readers sent him my stack, he commented. He wasn’t just kind and gracious and even complimentary in response, he also agreed it might be fun to talk. Voluntarily. With me. We scheduled it the same day, because we’re obviously both fans of comfort-zone trespassing and spontaneous recklessness.
Let’s please take a moment to acknowledge Dr. Spencer here. He could have ignored my post completely. He could have sent me a nasty email in reply. He could have penned a 12-tweet thread about my “dangerous misinformation,” or called his CDC buddies and asked them to put me on a watchlist.
Instead, he said, “Hey! You’re funny! I actually sent your torch job to my parents! We should be friends!”
I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Maybe he was just being nice in the comments so he could lure me into a Zoom trap and humiliate me with his highfalutin’ doctor knowledge. What if he twisted my words or hit me with a Latin phrase long enough to summon a demon or tried to bill me for a consultation? Even though I’m no stranger to impulsively bad decisions, I’m not gonna lie: this one had me sweating a little.
But he was incredibly charming and sincere over email, so I figured if things went sideways—or if he turned out to be a complete jackass—I could turn it into a roast or just bury it in the backyard with my dearly departed pets and all my other bad ideas.
What I was not prepared for was that Craig—yeah, we’re first-name-let’s-grab-a-beer pals now—would be hilarious and humble and thoughtful and curious. Yes, curious. He genuinely wanted to know how I became a raving anti-vax lunatic (my words, not his) and if there was anything public health could ever do to earn back my trust (LOL never not ever, and I told him so with the flailing-arm choreography I’m famous for).
My guest did try to commandeer the interview a few times—and I did call him out on it and redirect—but I straight-up sense it was out of authentic inquisitiveness and not a desire to “control the narrative,” as we like to say. I’ll let you be the judges.
We talked embalmer clots (Laura, that bit starts around the 29-minute mark in Part I), regulatory capture, and the industrial-sized grime coating Pharma; we compared our Covid origin stories and bonded over loss and the absolute circus of the last few years. I asked pointed questions—and didn’t always get straight answers—and told him how pissed I was when my hubby got a spontaneous tetanus shot; he shared what it was like being a frontline physician at the outbreak’s epicenter and doubled down on his goal: finding common ground with someone dug in on the other side without it turning into a metaphorical knife fight.
I was friendly and courteous and blunt; I also was not even a tiny bit shy about expressing my disdain for his industry, exposing my cynicism in general, and dragging out the continent-spanning catalog of institutional buffoonery that turned me feral.
Zoom cut us off just as we were landing the plane, but Craig agreed to a quick Part II before he had to run off to pick up his kids—hence the double videos below. I still didn’t get to ask all of my questions (I had a list! A bullet-pointed, color-coded one!), but Craig seems game to continue the conversation… so let me know if that’s something you guys would enjoy.
PART I:
PART II:
Thank you again, Dr. Spencer, for your time and grace. I still think we disagree on more than we agree on—but I also think you’re a solid, sincere, wickedly funny guy with a good heart, and I’m truly looking forward to the next installment of our little science-diplomacy experiment.
NOTE TO READERS: Before you watch, let me tell you that these interviews are completely raw and unedited. They’re not polished in any way—as you’ll see. There’s no fancy intro or outro or welcome music; it’s just me hitting record and then struggling to hit stop record. Some of you might be disappointed. (Why didn’t she ask this? I can’t believe she didn’t bring up that!) Believe me, I was up all night asking myself the same things.
So I’ll reiterate: There is still much to be covered in this space—and I welcome your input. If you have questions you wish I’d asked Craig, share them here and I’ll make a list for our next chat.
I'm a retired medicinal chemist from the pharma sector. My "ee-ee-ee" moment (see Jenna's moment at ~8:25 into the first video) was early on when the world was in panic mode where, instead of broadcasting the net far and wide looking for solutions to this virus, completely rational ideas for treatment were shut down and labeled as dangerous disinformation. Some of those ideas involved known therapies with a long history of safety. In our practice of looking for new therapeutics, we always went broad screen looking for useful signals that might lead to a new drug. That's when I suspected that science was not driving the car anymore.
This is a perfect example of why the legacy media is dead. No way you would ever see this sort of openness from the bought-and-paid-for ghouls of the mainstream. Well done Jenna, and huge thanks to Dr. Spencer for having the humor, good grace and frankly the *balls* to enter into a debate like this, especially at short notice. I look forward to watching on my commute home later today.