The Daily Signal - Hold China Accountable for COVID-19, Texas Lawmaker Says

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Rep. Michael McCaul says the United States needs to hold China accountable for COVID-19. The Texas Republican joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss how we might do that. "I think it's becoming more and more clear as the evidence unfolds, when we talk about the origins of COVID-19, that it's more likely it came out of this laboratory," McCaul said of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. "And the lengths to which the Chinese Communist Party went to cover this up: Detaining doctors, silencing them, destroying lab samples, not allowing the [World Health Organization] to declare it an epidemic, then a global pandemic. They have the blood of 3.5 million people on their hands, and economic chaos and destruction throughout the world." We also cover these stories: The Biden administration announces Thursday that it is sending 25 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine abroad to nations in need.  The cases of COVID-19 have fallen to the lowest levels since March 2020.  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs legislation to discourage Texas communities from defunding their police department.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, June 4th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Representative Michael McCall, Republican of Texas, says the United States needs to hold China accountable for COVID-19. He joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss how. We also talk about the crisis at the border as well as the Biden administration's decision to shut down the Keystone pipeline.

And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. encourage others to subscribe. The Daily Signal is currently at the Heritage Foundation's Resource Bank Conference in Austin, Texas. So please excuse some of the noise and the background chatter that you're going to hear. All right, now onto our top news. The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is sending 25 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine abroad to nations in need. The White House plans to donate about 19 million doses to the World Health Organization's COVAX initiative.

The other 6 million vaccine doses will be donated to United Nations frontline workers and countries like Mexico, Canada, and South Korea. President Joe Biden said in a statement that we are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic with the power of our example and with our values. The announcement to donate the excess doses comes as the White House has come under pressure to help nations struggling to gain access to the vaccine. The cases of COVID-19 have fallen to the lowest level since March 2020. In a White House press briefing Thursday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said our seven-day average is about 15,600 cases per day. Walensky added, this represents a decrease of more than 30 percent from our price.

seven-day average, and more importantly, it is a 94% decrease from the peak of COVID-19 cases reported January of this year. Earlier this week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation to discourage Texas communities from defunding their police departments. Under the legislation, Texas will freeze property tax revenues for cities with a population of over 250,000 that defund their police. Cities would also lose their annexation power. for 10 years if they defund the police. According to the press release announcing the bill,

the legislation also allows the state of Texas to withhold sales taxes collected by a defunding city to give it to the Texas Department of Public Safety to pay for the cost of state resources used to protect residents of a defunded municipality. The bill also increases some criminal penalties in the state. Governor Abbott said in a statement that the men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line every day to keep Texans safe. And they deserve our enduring support and gratitude. Efforts to defund the police are downright dangerous, and these laws will prevent cities from making this reckless decision. A county in North Carolina is banning Coca-Cola machines from the county over the company's left-wing positions. Surrey County voted to remove

all Coca-Cola vending machines in its office buildings over backlash to the Atlanta-based soft drink makers' criticism of new restrictive Georgia voting laws, the New York Post reported. In a video interview with WXII, Eddie Harris, a county commissioner said, the left wing in America, they defund, they boycott, they cancel, they tear down statues, all sorts of egregious actions. Harris added, the expectation from them is the opposing political side will cower in the corner and we're supposed to accept that and it's supposed to be okay. And it's not okay.

The county voted three to two to remove the machines last month, WXII reported, but the machines have reportedly yet to be removed. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Congressman Michael McCall on why the U.S. must hold China accountable for COVID-19. Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you all about a great way you can stay in the know on all the news the Daily Signal covers. Social media. The Daily Signal has an active presence on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. constantly posting news stories, clips from interviews, videos, and more across all our social platforms. Follow the Daily Signal on social media so you can get all the latest content from Reels on Instagram to video clips on Facebook and political commentary on Twitter. I'm joined today on The Daily Signal by Congressman Michael McCall of Texas. Congressman McCall,

it's great to have you with us on The Daily Signal. Thanks for having you, Rachel. Well, you've talked a lot about how the United States really needs to hold China account for what happened with COVID-19. Why is this and how can the U.S. hold China accountable? Well, I think it's becoming more and more clear as the evidence unfolds. When we talk about the origins of COVID-19, that it's more likely it came out of this laboratory.

And I say that because a lot of stuff that's been classified since the time I've seen it classified, like the researchers coming down with being hospitalized or being hospitalized, flu-like symptoms consisted with COVID in November of 2019. And the links to which the Chinese Communist Party went to cover this out, detaining doctors, silencing them, destroying lab samples, not allowing the WHO to declare it an epidemic than a global pandemic. They have the blood of 3.5 million people on their hands and economic chaos and destruction throughout the world. So I do think accountability is important here. I think one of the best ways to hurt them punitively

and protect our national security is to pull the supply chains out of China and the region. That would be three main areas. Medical, which we saw they exploited with the PPs, rare earth minerals, which is, those are critical minerals that they've cornered the market on. And lastly, advanced semiconductor chips. They're in everything from your iPhone to the F-35.

And we're in the process of bringing manufacturing back to the United States, particularly on the advanced semiconductor chips. We have a bill in Congress going forward. That will hurt them economically. And then I think we've got to stop the cash flows into China. And that would be the investment. We need to declare certain entities sanction them so that these index funds and capital flows can't basically float up the economy of China anymore. You had said on CNN during a recent interview that you think that the virus was from a Chinese lab, but that wasn't an accidental release.

Why do you think that? Can you walk us through what you think happened there? Well, we had these State Department cables talking about the safety protocols being violated. They did accidentally release SARS in 2004. It's very consistent with that. They were genetically modifying a corona-like virus from bats, seeing how it could extrapolate the humans and try to develop a vaccine. Their focus was really vaccine-related, not, we don't believe it was a weaponization program,

although you can't count anything out. We do know that the military had access to this lab. That has come out recently as well. But right now, we think it's probably more likely to have been an accidental leak. But then, as I call it, the greatest cover-up in human history because of the consequence of this. What should Americans know about these labs in China that are working on diseases? Well, they're called level four facilities. They have the most lethal, toxic viruses that are on the planet.

And they're tinkering with Mother Nature. We have level four facilities in the United States as well. But we, you know, the Kim Biological Warfare Agreements, you know, outlawed weaponization. We look at it in terms of how can we provide cures, treatments, and vaccines. And that's what China was supposed to be doing as well. But if not handled right, if not contained properly, it can be very dangerous. And I think COVID-19 is a prime example. And if we don't get to the bottom of this, how are we going to stop the next COVID wave of COVID, say, 21 or COVID-whatever that's down the pike?

Well, the media was very dismissive of the lab theory. They called it a conspiracy theory. do you think that hurt the media's ability to find out the truth really about how COVID started? I think the media lost a lot of credibility on this one. I know Senator Tom Cotton was talking about this. I had a lot of conversations with him. I generated my own origins of COVID-19 report from the China task force that I chaired. And we talked about the lab in that report.

And that was a while back. I kind of feel like we're being vindicated now and the press was wrong. and we were right, but it just shows you how biased they can be. Like in this case, not wanting to look at any of the facts or the fact that everybody points to the wet market, but you have their top level four facility just right down the street. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to think that, hey, just maybe it came out of this lab. Well, you've authored legislation called the Chipsat that would make very simply

the United States less dependent on China. Can you talk more about this legislation? Yeah, this was Secretary Pompeo and Secretary Wilbur Ross came to me, National Security Advisor O'Brien, to talk about how can we pull these chains out of the region, out of countries working with Taiwan to pull like TSM into Arizona because they were being tapped into by the PRC, and ships are going to build their hypersonic weapons. So we want to pull out of South Korea, Taiwan into the United States, incentivize through tax incentives, these manufacturers of these cost-intensive fabrication plants that make the advanced semiconductor chips. You know, companies like Samsung right here in Austin,

they're expanding. You got Intel and IBM, they're going to do a joint venture to expand either in Texas or New York. And you have several other companies like that. We think not only would that provide more manufacturing jobs in the United States, but it will also protect our national security. Well, big picture, what do you think the U.S. should be doing about China in the next few years? I think we have to recognize that they're the greatest generational challenge to the United States. If they are long-term greatest national security threat, that it's an economic competition, it's a military competition. You know, it's generational, just like my dad's generation, World War II, to the Cold War to 9-11. Now it's going to be for my children,

the Chinese Communist Party, and we have to wake up. I think people are waking up. We've got to compete with them globally. We've talked about China and some foreign policy issues there. However, as you're the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, what big issues do you see most pressing for the U.S. to be leading on on the world stage? I think it's really shifted to who are our foreign nation adversaries. Russia is a good example. And we look at what the Biden administration has done, you know, canceling Keystone Pipeline, which is the cleanest way to transfer energy,

according to the Secretary of Energy, and yet allowing Putin with a national interest waiver that they gave him to complete his pipeline into Europe. That doesn't make sense to most Americans. While at the same time, Russia is hacking into colonial pipeline and shutting it down for days. I think we have to wake up that Putin is not our friend. We had mandatory sanctions on them on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,

and now the Biden administration is just completely, waive those and allowed Putin to enrich himself and build his pipeline while Biden is shutting down our pipelines in the United States. And now he's shutting down, you know, Alaskan Arctic drilling. So we were energy independent. I'm very worried we're not going to be, you know, under this administration. Well, let's switch gears a bit. We've been talking about everything abroad to move home and talk about the U.S. and Texas specifically. You represent a border state. Can you tell us your perspective of what's happening at the border right now? It's probably the worst I've ever seen it.

It's a crisis. It's not closed, as the Secretary of Homeland talks about. In fact, Chad Wolf and our, the Secretary, former Secretary and I are discussing this as a self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration. They took these agreements we made with Mexico and Central America that really brought this surge of migrants to a grinding halt. And they, in the stroke of a pin on inauguration day, completely reversed these policies, only because they have the name Trump on it. Now, we have a thousand a day crossing. I've been down there many times. It's the worst I've ever seen it.

And the morale down there's the worst I've ever seen it with Border Patrol. And they don't know how to fix it. And that's a problem. And it's going to be every American's problem as they come to your hometown. It's not just my state. They're passing through Texas and they're going to your hometown wherever they're. that may be across the United States. And it's going to be a million more people that we cannot deal with, and they have no legal

status. It's just an absolute disaster. And it's going to be hard for them to get out of this. How is legal immigration affecting Texans in particular? Well, the violence, you know, the traffickers, they come over. It's dangerous to people living down on the border. No one wants to buy a ranch down there anymore because of the, the threat of violence, but more so, as they bring these children in, they create a diversion,

and over on another part of the border, that's where they dropped the drugs and the bad, bad actors. You know, in Austin, Texas, we had four kids that my daughter went to high school with died from fentanyl abuse. They thought they were taking Xanax. It was laced with fentanyl, and they never woke up. It's now not hitting, we used to be a pass-through state. It was more northeast in Rust Belt.

Now it's Texas. I'm telling you, the amount of drugs coming in right now, and particularly fentanyls, they're going to create an opioid crisis in this nation and kill a lot of people that unwittingly don't even know they're taking fentanyls. If there's one thing about the border crisis that the media isn't reporting that you want people to know, what would that be? That these children are exploited. They don't have their parents. They're in tears down there. They don't know where they are.

It's not helping them. And when I talk to the Central American ambassadors, they say, we're losing a generation of children and we want them back. We're looking at private investment in Central America to lift up their economies at scale so we don't have this migration phenomenon. But the biggest takeaway is that the traffickers are winning and the kids are losing. And the traffickers are making $15 million a day and over half a billion a month on this enterprise. And they don't give a darn about these kids. care about is making $5,000 to $8,000 a child and taking a life savings from a family in Central America that don't have that much money.

As someone who is from a border state, what do you think needs to happen to fix this crisis? Well, you know, I think Trump had it right. I mean, we had the infrastructure. You know, we had the technology, we had the manpower. And more importantly, the policy and the asylum agreements that basically said you can apply for asylum, but you're going to remain. in Mexico. And that way, they weren't touching foot in the United States where they could stay. Since Biden has reversed that, they can stay. The traffickers know they can stay. And now they know the United States is open for business, green light, come on in. And that's really what's happening right now. You talked a little bit about the cartels and how they take these life savings from families

in Central South America, the kids that come over and are misused or raped, abused. Can you talk a little bit about how involved the cartels are. I think a lot of Americans don't realize that the cartels control who crosses. I think a lot of people think, oh, it's just families that leave their home and cross the border, and it's just this organic movement when, in fact, I mean, I've been there a bunch, and it is the cartels control. Can you explain that for people who might not understand that? They have more control over the border than we do.

They are very sophisticated. They're an international criminal organization. You know, it started out Medellin cartel in Columbia. and then they started to move north towards northern Mexico. We saw that phenomenon a couple decades ago, but it's international too. It's not all Central Americans coming across. It's special interest aliens coming from Africa in the Middle East.

And that's what worries us from a national security standpoint. If you don't know who's coming in, you can't control the threat. And they have scouts down on the border that they watch our Border Patrol. They have a very advanced communication system. They have so much money that's built into their criminal enterprise. And quite frankly, the hardware and the armor that they have, there's a great video you can pull up on the web that shows one of the, it's the new generation cartel.

And it looks like an army. A hundred armored tanks with crosses and skull bones. And these people are very vicious. And in some respects, not too much unlike ISIS. And they have no regard for human life. Like I said, they don't care about these kids. And they murder each other constantly down there. We mentioned this earlier in our conversation.

But before we wrap up, I wanted to talk about the Keystone Pipeline. The Biden administration decided to shut it down. What's your perspective of this and how does it impact Americans? I think, you know, it's, again, this Green New Deal. They see it as an environmental threat. But then, you know, paradoxically, the Secretary of Energy in this administration said the pipelines are the safest way to, safest and most environmentally, best way to transport energy. And yet they shut down symbolically the Keystone pipeline. So how are we going to transport that energy now by freight, by, you know, train and by, you know, 18-wheeler?

That's not, that makes no sense. And so all the jobs associated with it here in my state, you know, the welders that were building the pipeline, the blue-collar workers, they don't have a job now because he just shut that down. He's suspending the Arctic drilling that we actually under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act created. He's going to kill jobs in Alaska. And at the same time, giving a national security waiver to Putin to let Putin finish the Nord Stream 3rd. pipeline. How much sense does that make, particularly as the Russians are using their advanced cyber capabilities to shut down our colonial pipeline in the United States, causing a short-term energy crisis? Congressman McCall, thank you so much for joining us on The Daily Signal.

It's great having you with us. No, thanks, Rachel. I appreciate that. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Iheart Radio. please be sure to leave us a review and have five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.