America's Talking - FBI Confirms COVID-19 Likely Came From Wuhan Lab

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

The FBI has confirmed initial reports that the Biden administration is now saying the most likely source of COVID-19 is the virology lab in Wuhan, China. The news comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Energy gave classified briefings to key lawmakers and the White House saying the most likely origin of the virus was the lab in China. “[FBI] Director Wray confirmed that the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China,” the agency said in a statement. --- Listen to Other ATN Productions: America's Talking: An interview podcast hosted by Austin Berg. Guests include professors, journalists, artists, business and nonprofit leaders, authors, and more. Everyday Economics: Join economist Dr. Orphe Divounguy and Chris Krug as they discuss global markets, inflation, and everything else that will help you understand the economic world around you. Future of Freedom: Future of Freedom is a bi-weekly podcast highlighting the work of the non-profits which are shaping the future of the freedom movement. Listeners will hear civil, intellectual conversations about why the organizations exist, what their mission is, and how they work to achieve it. Hosted by Scot Bertram. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is K.C. Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Some interesting developments about the origins of COVID-19 over the past week, Casey First. The Department of Energy last weekend, essentially a report from the Wall Street Journal, said that the Department of Energy now thinks that the most likely scenario is that, that COVID-19 was leaked from the Wuhan Live, that did not come from nature, that it wasn't passed on from humans by, for example, a bat, that the Wuhan lab, that American taxpayers have funded by millions of dollars where they experimented on novel coronaviruses, that that's how COVID-19 started and spread. What tell us more about this.

Are you telling me that the novel coronavirus that began in Wuhan, China, may be linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology that studies coronaviruses in Wuhan, China. Sounds like a stretch, but not just maybe, most likely did is what the FBI director. He said that back in 2021, but he has since confirmed that that's the FBI's view as well. Yeah, I mean, there's three stories here. One is, you know, where did COVID come from? And the other is, wow, the narrative is really changed on this. And what was once something that could get you mocked and banned online is now, something being stated by official government agencies. And man, doesn't that feel familiar when it

comes to COVID and what we're allowed to say and not say, right? So the first story is a more simple, straightforward one is where did this virus come from? Now, to be fair, nobody knows for sure. No one is saying 100% sure it definitely came from this lab. So that's something. I mean, we still don't have that level of certainty. But as you said, both the FBI and the Department of Energy are saying what was once considered a kind of conspiracy theory, which is this lab. This virus came from a lab in Wuhan. Now, there are others who, you know, more official sources who still cast doubt on that, who say, well, I don't know. But we've seen this real transformation. As time has gone on, more research is done into it. More facts have come to light. What was once written off, and I wrote

about this at the sooner square.com, how, you know, the major media outlets really mocked people who even considered it, even very early on in the pandemic. This is just kind of amazing to me how we've just seeing the media miss it so many times on big stories. You know, COVID-19 being a big one, why don't we go through a few of the examples, Casey, that you reported on of mainstream, big mainstream media outlets, just essentially mocking or putting down people who suggested that that's the most likely scenario, that COVID-19 was created and spread from the Wuhan lot. One of your stories this week, you point out of.

out some of these media outlets who called it a myth and some other things. Tell us about those. Yeah, I mean, 2020, the Associated Press called the idea of myth. New York Times called it a conspiracy theory. Washington Post called it a fringe theory. They called a conspiracy theory. So, and this is early on in 2020. I mean, for example, this Washington Post article is in February of 2020. I mean, this is so early on. So just to say that we knew for sure or could know that something was or wasn't a conspiracy theory, it was just so early on for news outlets to be making just. And for example, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, he was really pushing this idea of raising questions like, hey, there's a Wuhan Institute of Virology, right where this lab, you know, just a few miles from where this virus originated, we should look into this. This could really be the source. And he was just viciously attacked by the media. In the Washington Post, for example, had to issue a correction. On that specific article, right?

Right. Yeah. And here's our correction. Earlier versions of the story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Senator Tom Tom, Tom, regarding the origins of the coronavirus, the term debunked and the post-use of conspiracy theory have been removed. Then as of now, as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus. And so when this, you know, Wall Street Journal initially reported the energy department's findings about the origin of COVID, he tweeted out the WSJ story and he said, well, well, well. So, you know, he's being vindicated a little bit. You know, as I say, it's important to know where COVID came from because one, as you said, the lab was funded by taxpayers. There's a big debate right now over whether we were funding the specific kind of research that creates coronaviruses or if we were just

funding the lab in other ways and it happened to also be creating coronaviruses. It depends on who you ask, Dr. Fauci or Rand Paul, you'll get a different answer. But there's that question. And then there's, you know, China's role in it, how China covered it up or didn't respond rightly. The world basically was delayed in preparing for COVID because of China's response. You could make that argument. And then there's kind of the more political argument. There's the free speech argument, which we've seen again and again where social media companies and big corporate media censor a story. And then it turns out they were kind of wrong as happened with vaccines, you know, not totally wrong, but they overplayed the effectiveness of vaccines. They were wrong

about this potentially about this origin's story. They were wrong about Hunter Biden and shut it down and censored that story right before the election. Now it turns out that's true. So I think the confidence in big tech and corporate media is, really eroding and it's their own doing right now. All right. President Biden was criticized. Remember the Ministry of Truth that he wanted to create to tamp even further tamp down quote unquote misinformation, misinformation that now some of it's we found could be true. Yeah, ministry to maybe just like a ministry of just fact checking or something. I mean, a ministry of common sense is maybe more in order.

Or a ministry of just open debate. I mean, that's the thing is the good news is that it doesn't take very long because of the internet for more information and ideas to rise to the surface and people have debated on Twitter and to find out more information. And so within, you know, only a few months, really, we started a year or so we started to find out about Wuhan and what was going on because of the internet. It happened really quickly. But when we shut down that debate, the truth may never actually rise to the surface. You attended one of the White House press briefings this week, know how those things go. Generally, the folks there are there every day from some major media outlets, they get called on to ask questions. You were going to attempt to ask what Biden was going to do with this new information about the one lab.

You did not get your question in. The White House press secretary did not call on you to ask a question. But what do you think? What is the next steps? What should the Biden administration are due? Republicans, I understand. You're working on our story for the weekend. Republicans are calling for a declassification of all the documents related to the origins of credit. Republicans wanted him to declassified. They want transparency. I think Biden is going to be reluctant to do that.

The White House this week is really pointing out that there's not a consensus. Yes, the FBI is saying something, but there's not a consensus on this. Other reporters pushed and said, hey, is there going to be, what's going to happen to China if this is really their fault? and Secretary Anthony Lincoln was just, he said, well, we're not going to make a decision on that till we really get a consensus. That's where they're kind of in a wait and see mode right now. Our listeners can keep up with your reporting on this story and more at thecenter square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulb. Please subscribe and thank you for listening. Freedom and Liberty are important to all of us.

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