The President's Daily Brief - December 8th, 2022. Dr. Fauci Admits that He Lied to the American Public About the Lab Leak Theory to Protect China

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

It’s December 8th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America — and the world.   First, some high drama in the South American country of Peru to tell you about, plus why it matters. Second, the Russian economy is chugging along, with buyers still lining up for Russian oil, coal, and wheat. Third, Saudi Arabia is meeting with China’s leadership this week, celebrating oil sales between the two countries. And boy is that relationship worth a lot of money. Next, Joe Biden is trying to salvage a fourth immigration policy first created by Donald Trump, that’s on top of the three I told you about on Monday. Finally, Dr. Tony Fauci admitted that he lied to the American people about the Wuhan lab leak theory, all to protect China from the world’s outrage.   Later, we close out the podcast with a listener question about how Europe’s doing this winter with their natural gas supplies. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's December 8th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I've got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America and the world. First, some high drama in the South American country of Peru to tell you about, plus why it matters. Second, the Russian economy is chugging along with buyers still lining up for Russian oil, coal, and wheat. third, Saudi Arabia is meeting with China's leadership this week, celebrating oil sales between those two countries, and boy, is that relationship worth a lot of money. Next, Joe Biden is trying to salvage a fourth immigration policy first created by or endorsed by Donald Trump. That's on top of the three that I told you about on Monday. Finally, Dr. Tony Fauci admitted that he lied to the American people

about the Wuhan Lab leak theory, all to protect China from the world's outrage. Later, we close out the podcast with a listener question about how Europe's doing this winter with their natural gas supplies. But before we get to that, we got to get started with this. Yesterday was full of high drama in the South American country of Peru. The president of that nation first dissolved the Congress, all because he was just about to be impeached. But they ignored him, and they impeached him anyway. The national police then arrested the then former president, who, according to these folks, the national police,

well, the man is now sitting in jail being detained. So as that story plays out with the new president sworn in yesterday afternoon, perhaps it leads the average American to ask, why should we care about this story? Well, in a word, copper. Peru mines a whole bunch of that mineral. In fact, they're the second largest producer in the world. And by several estimates, we are going to be running short of copper

over the next 10 years or so. And the reason is because of dirty green energy. According to a 2021 report by Goldman Sachs, intermittent energy sources like solar, wind, and batteries will drive copper demand up by anywhere from 600 to 900% by the year 2030. So political developments in copper-producing countries like Peru become really important, whether you like dirty green energy or not. And unfortunately, Peru is not a terribly stable country.

country. There have been six presidents in the past six years, each dogged by allegations of corruption. And so while there is a new president, we'll have to see how long this one lasts. Let's move on from Peru to Russia this morning for the next brief with a quick update on Moscow's economy. Because as PDB listeners know, the better that their economy does, the longer that the war in Ukraine drags on. In other words, Russia can afford to buy more weapons. and keep paying their soldiers. Well, the first big news is about their oil sales. As I told you about on Monday,

Europe and the United States are trying a, well, a new scheme of sorts to limit the price that Russia can collect for a barrel of oil. $60 was the cap. Plus, European insurance companies aren't able to issue any policies for oil tankers if they're hauling oil that's violated this new $60 a barrel rule. So the real question was and is, whether China, India, and Turkey will honor this new Western rule. Well, they've been big buyers of Russia's oil over the past nine months,

so we've all been waiting to see what would happen this week. Well, we now have our first indicator of what those countries intend to do, and it's not good news for Europe and the United States. According to analysis done by Reuters News Service, well, it shows that Chinese oil buyers are embracing a business-as-usual kind of attitude regarding Russian oil. In fact, they're buying it still by the buckets or barrels, I suppose. One deal completed this week was for an order at $68 a barrel, which of course is over the limit. And when asked why they're violating the rule, one independent refinery owner said,

quote, Chinese refineries don't really care about this price cap. All they do is crunch the numbers to see if the delivered prices make for good profit or not, end quote. All right. Well, meanwhile, Russia has two other good pieces of economic news beyond this initial oil bit. The first is about their sale of coal. According to Bloomberg news, shipments in October are just shy at the levels set in June, which was the highest since at least 2017. Now, interestingly, sales are up partially because Europe has agreed to let Russia ship its coal through European nations. Now, Europe can't buy Russia's coal. That's in violation of sanctions. But other third parties can in places like Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. So Europe's letting it all go through and letting Russia make good money off of all of it. So finally, exports from Russia, which, by the way, is the world's largest wheat supplier, should hit record levels this month in December, or at least darn close to it. That's according to analysis done by the Russia-focused consultancy SovCon. Now, historically, Egypt and Turkey are the big buyers of Russian wheat, but we don't have data on that anymore because Moscow is limiting that information.

And the reason is that they want to avoid what they're calling speculation and reprisals against their buyers. So, all and all folks, while it is absolutely true that Russia is certainly having a harder time making money these days, especially in the banking sector, well, the global marketplace is still very interested in buying what they're selling, and they are. And that's probably why Russia's President Vladimir Putin said yesterday in a televised meeting that he doesn't see the war ending anytime soon. He said, quote, as for the duration of the special military operation in Ukraine, well, of course, this can be a long process, end quote. Unfortunately, I suspect he's right.

All right, let's now pivot from Russia to China and Saudi Arabia. President Xi of China is in the Middle East to celebrate and strengthen his ties between China and Saudi Arabia in particular. Now, the big focus between those countries will be about oil. Saudi Arabia is China's number one supplier of oil at 18% of their total supply. And that's meant very good things for the Saudis and the royal family that runs that country. The government there released financial details yesterday about the state of their economy and are they doing well. The Saudi Arabian government said that revenues increased to $328 billion this year,

mostly because of higher oil revenue. Plus they predicted next year should be another gush or two with another $300 billion or more in revenue. Now with all that money, they are spending tens of billions to modernize and diversify their economy. So for instance, they're building a massive new airport near the capital city of Riyadh. Plus, they're spending billions more in infrastructure updates in 14 cities throughout the country. And then there's this. They're building a new skyscraper that, believe it or not, is 75 miles long and 1,700 feet tall. It's called Neom.

And if you want to look at the promotional videos of this thing, You really should. It's spelled N-E-O-M. And if it gets built, it will be one of the world's great wonders, at least in my estimation. Now, there are a lot of folks who are very skeptical that will ever get built, especially my engineering friends. But we shall see. Because where there is a will or an oil well, there is a way. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, let's take a quick break. For my paid subscribers, no ads for you. Although, as always, let me know if you have any troubles with that. Apple's been giving us kind of a hard time. But for everybody else, hang tight for a few messages. And then when we come back, two more critical pieces of news for you. We'll be right back. Who cares about your poops?

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Welcome back to the PDB. I've got two more critical pieces of news for you this morning. Joe Biden's immigration policy is taking another surprising U-turn. He's looking to extend another one of Donald Trump's immigration policies, which would make it the fourth policy that Biden is taking from the playbook of former President Donald Trump. So here's that story. with a quick refresh from our brief on Monday.

According to reports from Axios, Reuters, and my own sources, Joe Biden is looking to retool his immigration policies on the southern border. And what I shared with you on Monday is that he's looking to adopt three policies that were first embraced by President Trump. So first, Biden is considering to quickly deport single adult asylum seekers. Second, he's thinking about speeding up the process for asylum requests because those requests can currently take years, and as those applicants sit and wait, they get to stay in America. Now, that's despite the fact that 60 to 80 percent of those asylum applications will eventually get rejected.

It's a wildly, wildly abused system. Finally, the third Trump rule that Biden and his team are considering includes something called metering, which limits the number of migrants who can approach a port of entry to seek asylum. in any given day. Well, now we have a fourth Trump rule that Biden wants to keep, and this one is shocking. Title 42. It's a rule designed by Trump's team and the CDC that use COVID as a rationale to refuse entry to folks on our southern border. Biden has long blasted that rule. Democrats on Capitol Hill have two. Well, a judge agreed with their collective opposition and previously ruled that it must end on December 21st.

Except the Biden administration is now going to appeal that ruling, the one that they actually asked for. So it turns out that Biden and his team apparently think that Trump's Title 42 might be a good thing after all. Reuters News Service is reporting that Biden's team will still plan for the December 21st ending of the program, but they're hopeful that an appeal will be heard in time. So why are they doing this?

Because it's a bit of a head scratcher. Well, look, immigration groups are absolutely hopping mad. They don't know what's going on. But if I could offer some analysis and opinion, I think that this U-turn may have to do with Biden's embrace of federal power rather than immigration reform. And that's because Biden's team is saying that they are appealing in part because they believe that when the CDC issued this rule using COVID as a rationalization,

now, that they were legally allowed to do so. In other words, if a judge overturns this current ruling, perhaps the CDC will get its powers restored, also that they might use it again in the future. I'll let you decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. All right, speaking of COVID in the pandemic, let's pivot now to Dr. Tony Fauci, and a pretty remarkable admission from that man,

that he lied to the American people when he said that there was no lab leak in Wuhan. Because he said during a deposition that he told us all that because he wanted to lower tensions with China. Now, it's hard to believe that any of this is true that Fauci would ever say such a thing, but it is. Dr. Fauci had to sit for a seven-hour deposition because the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the federal government regarding its COVID policies and responses. Now, one of the people that they deposed was Tony Fauci, who as we all know is the director of the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He's also Joe Biden's chief medical director.

So during the deposition, the attorneys general asked Fauci about the lab leak theory and why he downplayed it, because in fact he did. Starting in January of 2020, until very recently, he has discounted the possibility that the bioweapons lab in Wuhan either accidentally or purposefully leaked COVID into the world and started the pandemic. And we now have Fauci's responses to the questions regarding his dismissal of this theory. Fauci said that he was unwilling to give credence to the Lab League theory because there was, quote, wild speculation and allegations, end quote, about the Wuhan lab, and that he was afraid that blue. blaming the Chinese for the outbreak would, quote, increase tensions and reduce cooperation, especially if we ever needed Beijing to prevent a future pandemic.

Finally, he said, quote, there was no evidence of a lab leak at the time, and that's what I was really concerned about, end quote. So to be clear, especially on that last part, Fauci is not being honest. There was both evidence and scientists pointing to a lab leak from Wuhan in January, February, and March of 2020 and well beyond that. But those men and women of science were called conspiracy theorists and otherwise smeared to include by Fauci himself. So lots more on this to come. With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives starting in January, you can bet that this will be a part of their agenda.

And if I may, it should be, regardless of party. We all deserve to know where COVID actually came from and why so many people are. politicians and media figures and public health officials like Fauci were so quick to bury the lab leak theory. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude your morning brief. But I've got one more thing before I let you go. We'll be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full move.

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Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Welcome back to the PDB folks. I've got one more thing before I let you go. Linda from Illinois wrote in last week, and she wanted to know if I could give an update on the energy crisis in Europe. In other words, are people going to freeze from a lack of natural gas? That's what she wanted to know. because that's actually something that we talked a lot about on the PDB through the summer and into early fall.

Well, Linda, overall, there's some modestly good news to report, at least in the short term. The fall and winter in Europe, at least so far, was and has been pretty mild compared to historical standards, and that means that the natural gas tanks are still largely full and holding up. But as always, Mother Nature is a fickle lady. For the next couple of weeks, there's an art. Arctic Cold Snap heading south, starting in the Nordic countries, and pushing into the UK and Germany. So this will be the first real test for how the conservation efforts in Europe, well, how they hold up. Things like shutting off the heat in public buildings or turning down lights on the Eiffel Tower.

But Linda, the real problem with Europe and its energy policies, it's not really about this winter. It's more medium to long term. Because starting this spring and again in the summer, they're going to need to really refill all of those natural gas tanks again and then make it through another winner. So that cycle of need will continue for years until more natural gas supplies are brought online. Now, will that happen? In other words, will the market be able to respond? Maybe. Now, this year, it has worked out, thankfully, and so far. But down the road, European nations will need bigger and more reliable supplies of natural gas. In fact, they're currently negotiating with

countries in northern and western Africa, and even talking to Israel and Lebanon about their recently expanded natural gas development, too. So bottom line on this, Linda, so far, so good this fall and winter in Europe, in terms of dodging the big energy bullet that so many of us feared. But again, that's largely been because of luck. Mother Nature has given them some global warming, shall we say. That's treated them pretty good. After this winter, though, and for years to come? Well, that is a different challenge altogether. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show, reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every

smart American. It's from John, chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Good day.