President Trump says he and the
Democrats are closer to agree to at
least 300 billion dollars in a stimulus
deal to help small American businesses
hit hard by the corona virus pandemic it
comes as the u.s. hit a grim milestone
records show that 40,000 people have
died from the virus despite the numbers
governor's in several states have been
under pressure following demonstrations
from people demanding lockdown
restrictions be lifted protesters are
angry about how measures to control the
spread of coronavirus have affected
their work and the economy some have
lost their jobs as a result and say
they'd rather risk catching the virus
then continued like this our North
America editor John soup will raise the
issue with President Trump at his latest
briefing planning to protest tomorrow
the government shut down what would be
your advice against the shutdown
shutdown people feel that way you're
allowed to protest I mean they feel that
way i watch the protests and they were
all six feet apart it was a very orderly
group of people but you know some some
have gone too far some governors have
gone too far some of the things that
happened or maybe not so appropriate and
I think in the end it's not going to
matter because we're starting to open up
our state's and I think they're gonna
open up very well well I spoke to our
Washington correspondent Gary O'Donoghue
who said President Trump is defending
people demonstrating against lockdowns
actually all in that press conference he
was asked again about it and he excused
them even further by saying that they
had what he called cabin fever so these
are bear in mind these are guidelines
that he himself has put in place but
he's nmp empathizing with people for
protesting against so in a sense I said
I suppose some people would say he's
trying to have it both ways there is
some suggestion that some of the
protests have been a bit coordinated
perhaps by particular lobby groups not
all of them but some of them and again
the president did appear to empathize
with some of that that nature of
protests the other day in the tweet
where he talked about liberating certain
states from the restrictions they were
under so you know it's all on the one
hand on the other a bit this predator
game this president is playing in terms
of these protests Gary I mean when you
look at the numbers it's it's grim the
death toll has now gone past 40,000 yes
it has almost 41,000
now and over three-quarters of a million
cases all together the good news if
there is such a thing is that
hospitalizations in some of these
hotspots like New York and Connecticut
have started to come down but there are
other areas of concern as well like
Chicago and Boston potentially in the
meantime people on Capitol Hill the
Senate in particular today are trying to
look at more help for small businesses
because if you remember we talked a
couple of weeks ago about that two
trillion dollar spending package an
enormous spending package that have been
agreed by Congress well the 350 billion
dollars that was in there for small
billa's businesses has all gone so the
pot is empty and a lot of small
businesses still haven't been helped so
they're trying to negotiate yes another
package on top of that to really keep
people on the payroll that's essentially
what it's for
that was our Washington correspondent
Gary O'Donoghue there well staying in
the United States and president Trump
has said the US government wants to send
a team into China to investigate the
corona virus outbreak the US and other
countries have been highly critical of
Beijing's handling of the crisis it's
reported that American teams want to
investigate security at a laboratory in
Wuhan and an unsubstantiated theory
pushing conservative media outlets in
the US that the virus escaped from the
facility into the surrounding population
the scientific consensus is that the
virus which causes covered 19 originated
in animals most likely in bats and was
transmitted via live animal markets all
to discuss this with me further is Jamie
Mayer
so who was a former member of the US
National Security Council and is now a
member of the World Health
Organisation's expert Advisory Committee
is also the author of hacking Darwin a
book that covers the us-china rivalry
thank you very much Jamie for joining us
here on the program as I was saying
there is currently a lot of discussion
about the origins of this particular
virus and of course as the pressure
mounts on China people want to
understand where it came from and how
yeah that's exactly right it's
critically important that we understand
where this virus and this outbreak come
from and we have to do it quickly and
definitely at least I and I think most
people abhor any kind of intolerance
racism or anything like that but asking
the tough questions about where this
comes from I think is critically
important most scientists agree this is
not some kind of bio weapon or some kind
of manipulated virus but I certainly
believe and I try to look very
dispassionately at the evidence that
it's probably most likely and it's
impossible now without more evidence to
confirm this that this could very well
be a leak from one of the the Chinese
virology institutes in in Wuhan I've
posted a lot of the evidence on my
personal website and I just think that
we have to ask when you talk about the
evidence because as we've said you know
the scientists overwhelmingly believed
that it had come from animals and most
likely bats and there's a lot of talk
about the live animal wet markets as
they're known what you just said is
actually not correct I think everybody
most people agree that this is I mean
this is Oh a notic virus they jump from
animals and humans but the question is
did it happen in a wet market which
seems extremely unlikely and again I
have that evidence on my site or is this
a virus that was isolated in a lab with
the best of intentions of developing a
vaccine and there was yet another
security breach in one of those labs so
I think that that the way you've
characterized this I think is actually
not correct so then based on what I mean
I know you talk about your blog but
there was a Washington Post article just
last week looking at cables from 20
18 and of course FoxNews and the
president are pushing this as well this
theory about about the labs but just
just if you can briefly give us a sense
of what students you've got sure and
just to be clear I am a progressive the
last thing that I would want to do is to
support anything that not anything but
most of anything that what President
Trump is saying or the toxins that are
being spewed on Fox News but let's look
at the at the evidence first
if this was a ZOA notic jump um how
would it have happened this was a
seafood market not a bat market not a
civet market if it had been those
animals there likely would have been
they don't have pangolins indigenous in
wuhan they would have gone from
someplace else The Lancet in January had
reports on that there were cases of this
coronavirus of the pandemic not yet a
pandemic in wuhan before the cluster in
in the seafood market and we have lots
of there's lots of information about not
just the cover-up and how aggressive the
cover-up was but about the nature of the
research that was being done in these
wuhan labs you know again this is this
is all speculation but at the heart of
this jamie is really the great power
competition between China and the US
which you've written extensively about
and and how you now work work with a
rival like China we the United States
and China must work together closely in
our ender to interdependent world to ask
questions about where this this outbreak
comes from doesn't mean we have to
undermine our relationship with China I
mean it's it would be a blow if what I'm
saying is is accurate but the way I see
this imagine there's a plane crash and
then we would say oh we some people may
say well now's not the time to ask why
the plane crashed but there are planes
in the air we don't know if these
pandemics come in ones or twos or threes
there could be this same problem that
has brought us this pandemic could be
brewing now so if we don't know where
this is coming from if we're not asking
the tough questions shame on us but that
doesn't mean this has to play into some
terrible rivalry that
this has to play into racism or
intolerance if there's one thing this
virus has taught us it's that we are all
interconnected and the only way we're
going to solve our problems is by
working far closer together than we have
in the past but asking tough questions
and getting to the truth as best we can
needs to be part of that process jamie
Metzl great talking to you thank you so
much for joining us