Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci highlighted his hot-and-cold relationship with President Donald Trump in diary entries during the COVID-19 pandemic that were released Monday.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul shared the diary entries as he prepares to question the former Trump and Biden administration official about the pandemic later this week. Fauci served as NIAID director under both leaders during the pandemic.

Fauci wrote in the diary entries that he and the president appeared to get along during their first meeting in the Situation Room in 2020, according to the Washington Post.

“The President came in and the first thing he said as he looked at me was: ‘Anthony, you are really a famous guy. My good friend Lou Dobbs … told me that you were the one of the smartest, knowledgeable and outstanding persons he knows,'" Fauci wrote in the journal entry. "He then stayed for 20 minutes and asked most of his questions of me. I was surprised and very pleased and the Deputies were clearly stunned and impressed.”

Fauci said he later tried to push the president not to underplay the seriousness of the pandemic, warning it would look like a cover-up, which was allegedly advice that Trump declined to follow. 

The former NIAID director said in another set of journal entries that he was growing tired of Trump's "ramblings" and that the president did not appear to have a long attention span, but said one interaction with Trump was "AMAZING."

Fauci later shared that the relationship turned harsher in August as COVID-19 pandemic cases rose and claimed Trump did not want to acknowledge the increase, instead urging the former director to be "positive." 

“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)," he wrote on Aug. 8.

By November, Fauci's opinion of Trump and his handling of the pandemic appeared sour with Fauci noting that Trump wanted to focus on the election results instead of the ongoing pandemic.

"Continual surge: 138,000 new infections yesterday. POTUS has no interest at all in the Pandemic," Fauci wrote. "He is focusing on blocking Biden from being POTUS. He is embarrassing the USA. However, 72,000,000 voted for him. Difficult to understand. Craziness has overtaken part of our country.”

Fauci is expected to appear in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.