I want to show you a cartoonish video of a Trump official talking out of both sides of
his mouth.
And then I want to have a serious conversation and actually try to talk about facts.
This is video of Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
He went or Pompeo, as some call him.
He went on a._b._c.s this week, over the weekend with Martha RADDATZ.
And during 30 seconds, this is 30 seconds.
He said, yes, coronavirus was manmade.
No, corona virus was not manmade.
This is the same guy.
This is the same day.
This is the same interview.
This is the same 30 to second segment, completely incoherent.
Take a look at this.
It was manmade or genetically modified.
The best expert so far seem to think it was manmade.
I've no reason to disbelieve that at this point.
If you're at your office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus was not
manmade or genetically modified.
That's right.
I agree with that.
I've said I've seen their analysis.
I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly.
I have no reason to doubt that that is accurate.
Now, I have no reason to disbelieve.
It was manmade.
And my office is correct that it's not manmade.
That is direct conflict.
OK, you if you haven't been following this.
Donald Trump and others have been talking about whether Corona virus, instead of simply
coming from bats, jumping to humans and then spreading, if it might have been a project
of a level for biosafety laboratory in Wuhan, China, and could have escaped because of a
mistake, or maybe it was even released deliberately like a bio weapon.
Now, there are some fringe conspiracy theories that insist that it was a deliberately released
manmade bioweapon.
That's I mean, I'm not even gonna take that seriously because there's no evidence of that.
There have been some reports that have jumped to relatively mainstream corporate media,
which say it's being looked at, not whether it was manmade, but whether it was naturally
occurring, but was being studied in the lab and through an accident came out of the lab.
Okay.
Now, I just want to make sure we're clear on the possibilities we're talking about and
the ones that we are not.
So the possibilities are this came from bats and was transmitted in public through natural
means.
It came from bats, was being studied in this lab and was accidentally released.
It came from bats, was studied in the lab and was deliberately released.
It was completely manmade, but released accidentally.
And then, of course, it was completely manmade and released on purpose as a bio weapon.
I'm only talking about scenarios 1 and 2, which is if this was being studied at this
lab, it was released as an accident due to a mistake.
The reason we are even having this conversation is because there actually have been some reports
saying that this is being looked at.
Countless scientific sources have already identified that it is of natural origin that
wouldn't precluded from having been studied at this Wu Han lab.
And that's the reason that we're bringing it out.
Now, what is a biosafety level 4 lab, anyway?
What we're talking about is the one institute of virology.
This has been around since 2015.
Biosafety level 4 is when you were working with easily transmissible, transmissible pathogens
which can often be transmitted via aerosol and which can cause human death.
If a human is infected, often there would be no treatment or vaccination if a human
were to be infected.
That's the level lab that they have in Wunan and there's a whole bunch of other technical
requirements if you are level 4.
So my position is before we know for sure at this point, it appears that this is a naturally
occurring corona virus that came originally from bats transmitted in public.
I'm open to the idea that it may have been a pathogen being researched in this lab.
If we have evidence of that, then we'll take it more seriously.
As of right now, I don't believe that that was the case.
I don't believe it was a bio weapon or released on purpose.
But here's the serious thing to consider, OK?
If this was something being researched in this corona, in this one lab in China and
it was released accidentally, it changes nothing of of Donald Trump's response to the Corona
virus.
If it was completely naturally transmitted, the United States and South Korea had their
first cases within hours of each other.
South Korea handled it properly and the United States did not.
South Korea's death rate is 5 people per million.
The U.S. death rate is 210 people per million.
You didn't mishear that.
Our death rate per population is 42 times that of South Korea's.
So if this was mishandled at the Wuhan lab and accidentally released, that must be researched.
That must be dealt with.
And within China, there are already fears of a backlash like the one seen because of
the Tiananmen Square incident.
We'll talk about that on the bonus show.
If that's the case, there will be backlash.
We all know that.
But it doesn't make a difference in terms of evaluating Trump's handling.
If it spread at a woolen wet market, Trump's response was terrible.
If it came accidentally being released from a one level for biosafety lab, Trump's response
was still terrible.
It's a very important thing that we not allow the story about the source to.
Distract from our federal government's failed response.
And from Donald Trump's constant lies and attacks and smears as a result of the virus.
We'll follow the story.
We'll take it where it leads us.
It does nothing to make Donald Trump's response anything
but completely a bizarre