Ex-ABC News Reporter: Fauci Whined and Killed Our COVID Story

ABC News’ Terry Moran was fired for his appalling 2025 tweet about Stephen Miller, and he’s your archetypal liberal media member. Yet, we’re not talking about his anti-Trump bias, though he admitted that prohibited coverage of the president since no one in the newsroom voted for the guy — they had no idea what to do, but that’s for another time. 

On this, Moran had an insightful segment about what happened when Dr. Anthony Fauci learned about an ABC News segment on COVID. Remember, this was when Fauci was gung-ho about the pandemic not being caused by a lab leak, despite every intelligence agency pointing to it as the cause. He even wrote that those who disagreed with him didn’t understand science. The guy had a God complex; his ego was stroked by the media, and he made decisions based on it, not on the science. It was a total circus; it was exposed, and his reputation as some expert is now in tatters. 

Their story was about the lab leak — that’s why Fauci had a meltdown. To Moran’s shock, the network edited the story. They butchered it until it was unrecognizable. The media says Trump is trying to muzzle the press: when has he done that? This is what Soviet-style politburos do. Moran detailed this incident on The Fifth Column podcast. Moran learned of the edits the day the story was supposed to air in 2021 (via Fox News):

🚨 Fmr. ABC News’ Terry Moran Says Fauci Shut Down Their COVID Lab Leak Story

“The day that it’s supposed to air, it gets reviewed and it comes back to me — it is incomprehensible … I was told ‘Fauci’ … There was an organized campaign … to say there’s no way there’s a lab… pic.twitter.com/FM2Q6oe3m8

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 14, 2026

Ex-ABC News correspondent Terry Moran made an explosive claim this week about his former employer and how it allegedly overhauled a report he led on the COVID lab leak theory after running it first by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In an interview published Friday by “The Fifth Column” podcast, Moran recalled a time he said he felt the “heavy hand of censorship” at the Disney-owned network.

Moran said in early 2021, he had seen discussions from “smart and serious” people online floating the possibility that COVID had leaked from a lab and that ABC’s “Nightline” allowed him to pursue a story about the theory.

[…]

“We broke a little news that that lab had been funded by the Chinese military, despite the ‘Bat Lady’ [Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli] saying no, it hadn’t… And we kind of laid it out,” Moran said. “And at the end of the day, my own personal feeling was, you know, it’s probably a little bit more likely it’s natural. But if you told me it had leaked from the lab, fine. It’s probably not cooked up. It’s probably not a ‘Frankenvirus.’”

“And the day that it’s supposed to air, it gets reviewed, and it comes back to me, and it is incomprehensible,” Moran continued. “And I had never been angrier. I’m in the booth–”

“Are these lawyers?” podcast co-host Michael Moynihan asked.

“Lawyers, standards and, I was told, Fauci,” Moran responded. “And I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ And they’re going to air and it’s a 15-minute piece or whatever. And I’m cursing and screaming in the the booth.”

[…]

In the two-part segment that aired in June 2021, Moran’s segment put a spotlight on the debate over the origins of COVID. While he did interview Jamie Metzl, then a member of the World Health Organization’s committee on human genome editing who had been outspoken about a potential leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Metzl was outnumbered by other medical experts Moran interviewed who rejected the theory.

Look, Terry, you deserved to be fired over that Miller tweet, but why didn’t you resign after this? This is an outrageous story, and one that shows how the media fell into a cult of personality around Fauci. 

It’s a tad creepy.

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.