Five years after the COVID pandemic began, certain segments of the media, government, and intelligence community have finally gotten around to acknowledging the most likely origin of the virus.
The consensus is now that the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not spread naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, as originally claimed but rather from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where research into bat coronaviruses was being conducted.
The Trump administration recently debuted a refresh of the federal government’s COVID.gov website that leads with the headline “Lab Leak, the true origins of COVID-19″ and concludes “a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the origin of COVID-19.” But the renewed focus on the Wuhan lab is apparently not sitting well with the Chinese, who are now pushing back with a theory of their own.
On Wednesday, Megyn traveled to Liberty Crossing, home to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), to interview DNI Tulsi Gabbard about her few months on the job and why getting the complete story on the origins of COVID is a top priority of Trump’s second term.
China’s Theory
A white paper released Wednesday by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China claimed the United States was trying to “shift the blame” by declaring COVID originated in a Wuhan lab.
It called the lab leak theory “extremely unlikely” and pointed to a past joint study conducted with the World Health Organization that found COVID-19 was probably transmitted from bats to humans through another animal.
The paper introduced its own origin story, arguing there is “substantial evidence” suggesting the virus might have come from the U.S. earlier than the outbreak in China. It also blamed the U.S. for not doing more to stop the spread. “It has severely undermined joint international efforts in the fight against the pandemic and become a weak link in global public health governance,” the report stated. “The U.S. cannot continue to turn a deaf ear to the numerous questions over its conduct.”
The Investigations
Gabbard said she had not yet read the white paper but noted the postmortem on COVID has only just begun. “I created… the Directors Initiative Group that is focused on investigating a number of the president’s top priorities and the things that the American people really deserve and want to know the truth about,” she explained. “The origins of COVID-19 is one of them… [and] a lot of the work that has been done is on covid.gov.”
There is also a joint effort, she said, between the intelligence community and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “The thing that we are working with [NIH Director] Jay Bhattacharya… as well as [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] on is looking at the gain-of-function research that – in the case of the Wuhan lab, as well as many others around many of these other bio labs around the world – was actually U.S. funded and leads to this dangerous kind of research that, in many examples, has resulted in either a pandemic or some other major health crisis.”
On that front, Megyn laid out what is known so far. “We already know that [U.S.-based nonprofit] EcoHealth Alliance was partnering with this Wuhan lab to do gain-of-function research; we just have never been able to have somebody say, ‘And it was that exact experiment that led to this COVID bug,'” she noted. “But have we gotten there? What’s the new thing that you are digging in on?”
Gabbard said that is what she has teamed up with Bhattacharya to determine and hopes to be able to share their findings “on that specific link between the gain-of-function research and what we saw with COVID-19” soon.
Fauci’s Pardon
Megyn said such a link could be “extraordinary” because “if it was Peter Daszak’s [EcoHealth Alliance] research with the Wuhan so-called ‘bat lady’ that caused this pandemic, then… Anthony Fauci helped fund the pandemic.”
Gabbard noted that it is exactly what Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, consistently denied in sworn testimony on Capitol Hill. “So, is it any wonder that he sought a preemptive pardon for anything during a certain period of time by President Biden before he left office,” she asked.
Ultimately, Gabbard said the goal of the intelligence community is to get to the bottom of what happened to prevent future public health crises. “The reason why this is so important is not just what happened in the past,” she said. “It’s because this gain-of-function research is happening in bio labs around the world… [and], in order to prevent another COVID-like pandemic or another major health incident that could affect us in the world, we have to end this gain-of-function research and provide the evidence that shows exactly why and how it is in… the American people’s best interest to bring about an end to it.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Gabbard by tuning in to episode 1,061 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.