There's a report today that another intelligence arm of the US government,
this is inside our Energy Department has joined the FBI in concluding that COVID
began with a lab leak in China.
If we end up determining if our intelligence community over time
determines this is the majority view and it's the US government's view that this
was a lab leak in China and that government covered it up.
What should be the consequences?
>> Now before we get to Republican,
Senator Dan Sullivan's answer to Chuck Todd's question,
I think it's worth visiting the reporting on the allegations regarding
the lab leak and how it might have led to the coronavirus pandemic.
This has to do with a new report based on new intelligence by the Energy Department.
And while the Energy Department has come out with this conclusion,
they say that it is a low confidence conclusion and the intelligence community
overall is still divided in regard to where the virus originated from.
So here's what we know so far,
some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was a relatively weak or
it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department's conclusion was
made with low confidence suggesting its level of certainty was not high.
While the department shared the information with other agencies,
none of them changed their conclusions officials said.
Now it is important to keep in mind that there is one intelligence agency
that tends to agree with the Energy Department here and that's the FBI.
In addition to the Energy Department, the FBI has also concluded with
moderate confidence that the virus first emerged accidentally from
the Wuhan Institute of virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses.
We'll get to the other agencies in just a moment and
we'll also get to Sullivan's answer to Chuck Todd, but Cenk initial thoughts.
>> So there are two major things to look out here for.
First of all, did it come from a lab leak?
Nearly impossible to know.
I'm not a damage jim, I'm not a virologist having said that.
Did you hear what Anna just read you guys?
It came out of the city that has a Wuhan Institute of Virology,
a Chinese lab dot worked on coronaviruses.
That is an awfully large coincidence.
And that's what I thought throughout that was an awfully large coincidence.
Now in the beginning people swore up and
down that it was natural and not from a lab.
We'll get back to that in a second.
>> Actually, can we address that right now?
Because one thing that's become increasingly clear to me,
especially over the last year is that I don't know who to trust.
Right, I certainly don't trust reporters because reporters treated this
initially as if it was nothing more than a crazy unhinged conspiracy theory.
So who do you trust, right?
You can't trust the legacy media outlets because that was their narrative.
Right Wing media, tends to go in the direction of it was definitely a lab leak,
but they have their own biases.
So what do you trust?
Who do you trust?
Even the intelligence community in the United States is divided on this issue and
it's not just about the coronavirus pandemic guys,
it's about every single political issue I don't know who to trust.
>> Yeah, so I'm gonna make it worse before I make it better.
>> Okay, go ahead.
>> So first of all, the main organization that put out a report saying it was
definitely from a natural occurrence was the World Health Organization,
normally fairly reputable and trustworthy.
Except for the fact that in this particular case China demanded that half
the people on the panel be from China.
And so it was a very, very questionable finding, but
it was reported as if it was legitimate.
And so that makes it worth.
Second of all you think, well, okay, now it's pretty settled.
We've got the Energy Department, the FBI even saying more so
that they think it was a lab leak.
And come on at the Wuhan virology labs right there one of the chances not okay,
but be careful of the new reports too why?
Because now all of a sudden you've got republicans like the one we just showed
you in the beginning.
And Democrats who are more hawkish and and inclined towards neoconservatism
coming out saying this is the fault of the Chinese Communist Party.
So remember we've been reporting about how
we're starting to do more warmongering towards China?
The Pelosi visit the arms sales to Taiwan,
the Chinese spy balloons and the other Randall balloons.
We shot down as if it was they were Chinese etcetera.
So now here comes the war drums.
So be careful, be careful not just with, hey, what was COVID?
Where did it come from?
That's very important.
We have to track that down scientifically because for
the next virus that comes out, it's critical that we know the truth,
the medical, scientific truth behind how it emerged.
But it is curious that all of a sudden our government is starting to say democrats
and republicans and almost all of the neocons, pro war legislators coming out
and saying Chinese Communist Party, what does this have to do with communism?
Are you guys talking about?
>> It has nothing to do with communism whatsoever.
And if there was an accidental lab league,
as you say Cenk I think the world deserves to know about it.
The fact that the World Health Organization investigation into this
was heavily biased in favor of China is absolutely ridiculous.
And if I recall correctly that bias wasn't initially reported right.
It wasn't until the Biden administration found out that there was a pro China bias
within the World Health Organization's investigation into it,
that he ordered his own investigation.
And then after that it turns out that you have all of these mixed signals or
signs coming from various intelligence organizations.
Let's go to the other agencies, for instance, for other intelligence agencies
and the National Intelligence Council have concluded with low confidence that
the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission.
The director of National Intelligence Office Announced in October of 2021.
And like the low confidence, moderate confidence, who do you trust?
Especially given all of the other agenda items that both lawmakers and
government officials have in mind when it comes to geopolitical issues.
>> Okay, so I'm gonna give you a very self aggrandizing answer
person than potentially what [LAUGH] you consider for real answer, right?
Look, guys who can you trust?
How about us, right?
When it appeared that all the scientists were saying that it was natural born,
we said my recollection and you guys, everybody can look it up and
they often do right.
Was that hey, I'm like all the doctors and scientists are saying that it's natural.
Okay, I guess it's natural.
And then Wuhan labs, the virology labs in Wuhan and
then it became not unanimous and I was like, whoa, whoa.
That is an unbelievable coincidence.
The virology lab is right next to the outbreak.
What were the chances, right?
And so like we said that years ago,
right under Trump.
>> I don't know, I don't remember what you said, but
I'm going to take ownership of what I said.
Okay, because I said that there was no evidence of it, right.
If I remember it correctly right.
I wasn't completely dismissive of it.
But we didn't have evidence and
I'm not gonna repeat theories that we don't have hardcore evidence to back up.
>> Yeah. >> So I don't know what to believe and
when you say trust us we don't know.
We don't know.
>> No but that's exactly why you should trust us because we're not driving
an agenda here.
We're sharing all of the information that we have filled with uncertainty.
When you see people saying Right Wing media, Mainstream Media, we know, okay.
How do you know, are you a virologist?
Did you trace you know the DNA or whatever of the virus?
I don't even know the terms.
[LAUGH] Exactly right.
So of course we don't know for sure.
We don't have access to those things that were not those scientists.
And neither is the guy at Fox News or MSNBC.
Okay, but what we know is things that what we can ascertain together right?
Again it seems to me logically here, I'll give you an example
remember Mark Sanford was governor of South Carolina.
Goes on the app.
They said he was missing for a while and they said he was on the Appalachian trail
and they couldn't reach him because he was hiking for days.
And I said look I don't know I'm not next to him but
I would be shocked if that were true.
That's not very very likely.
It is not true, right?
And at the the time it was considered outrageous to say that a beloved governor
says he's on the Appalachian trail.
He must be on the Appalachian trail.
>> He was on a trail, right?
>> [LAUGH] For sure turns out he was in Argentina with his mistress.
Okay, so in this case you have the Wuhan virology lab that works
on coronaviruses and a coronavirus outbreak happens right next to it.
It's not, it is very likely that it came from the lab in my opinion.
But I'm telling you it's my opinion and that's called honesty.
>> So one of the reasons why it's been so difficult to determine with great
certainty or just a little more certainty than what we've heard so
far is that it seems as though the Chinese officials are making
it difficult to research this and investigate this.
In fact, I wanna give you a statement from a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
COVID tracing is a scientific issue that should not
be politicized mounting a Chinese foreign Ministry spokeswoman said of
the Energy Department's conclusion.
She then repeated calls for the United States to quote,
stop defaming China by raising the lab leak story.
>> Theory.
>> Theory I'm sorry.
And then this is the part that really gets to me.
China also spread conspiracy theories by suggesting COVID may have been
a product of us biological weapons programs.
>> Here, I'll give you two more logical conclusions guys.
So number one, she says the US is politicizing this.
So I see you've learned a trick or two from slimy American politicians.
Okay, no you guys are the Chinese government is covering up any attempt to
investigate where it actually came from which by the way
is another giant clue that it was their fault, right?
And so for her to say this that the US is politicizing it when they've made
a political decision to cover up what might be a crime.
The original crime scene is hilarious and obviously hypocritical.
Now was it on purpose?
That's another layer.
And that I think does get to look whatever you wanna call conspiracy theories right?
I'm positive I never called the lab link conspiracy theory because I always thought
it was logical.
Okay so please go and find whatever we said about it will own up to anything.
And my guess is you're gonna find me saying that at some point in one of
the coverages.
Anyways but in terms of actual conspiracy theories the US and
China are like do the Chinese Communist Party do it on purpose?
And the Chinese are like did the US do it on purpose?
Okay, but about a million Americans died.
700,000 Chinese have died.
That would be the worst plan in history it's not impossible.
There's a lot of incompetence in governments.
But I don't think anybody did this on purpose.
Killing nearly a million people in your own country.
>> And your economy.
>> And absolutely pulverizing each other.
>> Government officials don't care about human lives,
they care about money at the end of the day.
They care about their economy at the end of the day, would they do this on purpose
to negatively impact their economy, including the world economy?
I doubt it.
>> It is not likely.
Let's put it down.
>> Yeah, so with that said though, luckily we have all these competent government
officials, members of Congress who are really looking out for our best interest.
So they've got a game plan, right?
Well why don't we hear from Republican Senator Dan Sullivan on
what the game plan is?
>> I hope our democratic colleagues in the Congress can support that.
I know the republicans in the House are certainly supportive of that, but I think
if that happens, we need to make sure every country in the world knows this.
Look, this is a country that has no problem coming out and lying to the world.
We just saw that with this Chinese spy balloon, it's the nature of
a communist dictatorship to lie to their own people, to lie to the world.
But I think that we need to make sure every country knows that and then look at
what the consequences could be, obviously millions of deaths, huge economic impacts.
And it would once again show that the Chinese Communist Party is not only
a menace, but the nature of these regimes is to lie to the world and
we need to make that clear to people.
>> In other words there is no plan.
He called for hearings because that's what members of Congress do.
They just do hearings all day every day.
They do nothing else just hearings.
So how do you confirm the findings of the Energy Department and the FBI?
How do you know with great certainty that it was in fact a lab leak?
And once you find out and once you confirm that it is a lab leak,
what is the course of action?
Because I certainly don't want to engage in a hot war with China that would be
a disaster, right.
So I don't know what the future holds for this story for this issue and
I don't really know what to make of what we're hearing from the Energy Department
to be quite frank with you.
>> There's an excellent chance we're not gonna find out ever where it actually
came from because both the Chinese and US governments are giant liars.
So that senator, what a joke.
This Communist Chinese Party has no problem lying to the world.
What do you think we do?
George W Bush who you loved said we would never wiretap American citizens.
Then it turns out he was wiretapping American citizens.
We would never do torture.
They were doing torture lie after lie.
And it's not just republicans, democrats lie all the time too.
>> But Cenk think to be fair, we've never acted on bad intelligence.
>> [LAUGH] I mean come on, these guys are a goddamn joke and then chucked out.
Of course let's all of that slide as the beloved United States government.
The beloved CIA have never lied.
It's absurd right?
Now this on the other hand, the hearings in this case, it's like the only hearing
that the republicans have proposed, which I think makes some degree of sense.
Like Hunter Biden is a Rando and whether he did meth or whatever the hell he did,
I don't give a damn.
But if there's hearings as to where this came from and
they look into how this could leak from a lab that could have some value.
So it's not totally worthless.
Hey that's the best compliment I can give to especially republican politicians.
But let me end on the thing that I promised you earlier.
Look how do you tell what's right and wrong, right?
So I asked Noam Chomsky the same question when I interviewed him once here on
the TYT Network.
And his answer basically was look guys, you look for the facts.
You look for the nuggets of indisputable facts and then ignore everything else.
Okay, so he's like the New York Times will put bias into every story right?
It'll be a pro status quo, pro corporate bias CNN same etcetera.
Now, you know Fox News etcetera.
MSNBC have their own biases, right?
So ignore anything like the Chinese Communist Party.
They're liars, we're honest.
We'll ignore all that garbage and only look at the facts.
So in this case, what do we know we've got to US departments, Energy and
FBI saying they think it was a lab leak.
We got 4 American departments saying they think it was natural.
In other words we don't know.
Okay, so you make your own conclusions.