China has covered up COVID for almost 2.5 years: Morgan Ortagus
'Special Report' All-Star Panel analyzes the coronavirus lab leak theory.
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on January 25, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
BAIER: That's Dr. Fauci late this afternoon answering a question from Dr. Marc Siegel on his Sirius XM radio, "Doctor Radio Reports," about the reporting of the early days of the COVID origin, sticking to that he believes that most virologists believe what he came out with. But as we showed you, at the beginning of that there were many who were saying something different.
Let's bring in our panel. We'll start there, Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson, syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt, and Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the "Cook Political Report." Morgan, you were in government at the time. Secretary Pompeo was very forward leaning when it came to this and the investigation of it. A lot of people ask, why is this important now? Because, well, we're going to fight this pandemic, but there could be others down the road. We have to get to the origins of where this thing started.
MORGAN ORTAGUS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: Absolutely. And we should have been, all of us should have been critical and skeptical, I should say, of the Chinese Communist Party. You are talking about an organization that has denied and covered up the Tiananmen Square massacre. You are talking about a communist party that is currently overseeing a genocide in Xinjiang and trying to cover that up as well.
So I don't put it past them to take any of these actions, and in fact, they have covered up COVID for almost two-and-a-half years. We still don't have the live virus samples. There is still no independent scientist or doctors or even a real team from the WHO that can go in and find out what the origins of COVID are. And the Chinese Communist Party wants to make sure that it will never happen.
And I can tell you from the first days when we learned about COVID, President Trump and Mike Pompeo were incredibly skeptical. We started sounding the alarm very early on at the State Department that we thought the Chinese were hiding something. Two-and-a-half later they still are, and they faced no consequences.
BAIER: I guess, Amy, what's frustrating is that there is this effort that you see in these emails to kind of squelch any other talk. And the definition of scientists to try investigate and get to the truth. But in these emails, at least privately, there is only one narrative that they want out there.
AMY WALTER, NATIONAL EDITOR, "COOK POLITICAL REPORT": Yes, I'm very curious to hear not just some of the folks that you mentioned, Dr. Fauci and others' response to this report, but some of the others that you mentioned, and to hear haw they came around to this conversation or to this belief that they looked at both of those possibilities, and they ultimately ended up here at it being a natural process.
Ultimately, I do think, and this is the challenge. We've had a pandemic happens once every 100 years. There is a possibility we're going to see something again like this, unfortunately, in our lifetimes. And what I need to appreciate and understand is this moves very fast, and we have to be OK with it involving, our thinking about it evolving, much like, unfortunately, this virus has mutated. So should questions about it.
BAIER: Hugh, obviously there is a U.S. component here and what we were funding and doing in the Wuhan virology, that lab that we really don't have all the answers to yet either.
HUGH HEWITT, SYNDICATED RADIO HOST: We're not close. That was a devastating report, Bret. The CDC and the NIH obviously decided on judgment before verdict. They had their conclusion that it wasn't coming out of the lab. They had their narrative that they had looked at it very carefully. And they had their motive. Dr. Collins email that you disclosed in the SPECIAL REPORT that in the interest of science and international harmony, basically we have to stop this story.
The next question is what did they tell the White House? President Trump was taking all the arrows on their behalf. He defended the CDC when they botched the testing. He defended the CDC at every turn. But now we have a record that you have exposed tonight, and we will see what people say tomorrow, of a cover-up that is at least as damning as any I have heard of in the last few years.
BAIER: All right, listen, we're going to stay on this story. The big thing about going forward is trying to fight this. And Morgan, there is this battle over monoclonal antibodies, whether they should be approved. The Florida governor saying it's being shut down. The next step is really important.
ORTAGUS: Paul Mango, who was the chief of staff to Azar, has a brilliant op-ed about this. We should be able to fight COVID not just with vaccines, they are important, but also with therapeutics and with anything that American ingenuity can come up with. And why this administration has been a one trick pony just on the vaccines and not stressed the therapeutics, which can also equally save lives, is beyond me.
BAIER: OK. We will continue. A little shorter with all that big reporting tonight. We'll return with the panel and talk foreign policy after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is not going to be any American forces moving into Ukraine.
MIKE POMPEO, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There is no one asking for American troops in Ukraine. I haven't heard anybody make that demand. What they are asking for is the United States to live up to its commitments.
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We are not ruling off the table any unilateral U.S. troops also inside Europe or even going to Europe to help bolster our allies and to reassure them.
We are making it very clear to Mr. Putin that there will be severe consequences if he moves in another time to attack Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Again, the big international news, Russian troops poised on that Ukrainian border. What will happen? We are back with our panel. Amy, the president making clear today there are not going to be any American forces moving into Ukraine. It seems like he has gotten the word from polls and elsewhere that Americans are not into that move.
WALTER: No, they aren't. But they are also looking to see whether the president can live up to this moment. Crises shape perceptions of the president. This president already has had one crisis, which is the coronavirus, perceptions of handling that have sunk considerably, and, of course, on Afghanistan, perceptions of how that pull-out went very negatively. So, whether or not people see that he has control of this issue is going to be very important for him going forward and gaining the trust of the American public.
BAIER: Morgan, Senator Mitch McConnell came out and actually praised President Biden and his team for how they are handling this situation early on. Obviously, we don't know what we don't know, but your thoughts?
ORTAGUS: I didn't see that, but I wouldn't agree with the senator if he said that. Listen, I think we are at this moment today. We didn't have to be. We are at this moment today because of for the past year we had sort of chased Putin around the world as it relates to diplomacy, tried to get him to talk. And we have made concession after concession to either appease the Germans or appease the Russians, to stop them from escalating.
And what you saw a senior administration official today saying in a briefing is that they are at the end of the escalation ladder, and the United States is taking this seriously, and we are going to be tough. Bret, and the people that you showed in the clip, it sounds like me talking to my toddler. If you do that one more time, Russia, if you do that one more time. Well, my toddler doesn't believe me when I say that, and I don't think the Russians believe Biden.
BAIER: Hugh, interesting "Financial Times" piece today, "Russia and China's plans for a new world order." It says "When Vladimir Putin travels to Beijing for the beginning of the Winter Olympics on February 4th, the Russian president will meet with the leader who has become his most important ally, Xi Jinping of China. In a phone call between Putin and Xi in December, the Chinese leader supported Russia's demand that Ukraine must never join NATO. Both Putin and Xi believe their vulnerability "colour revolutions" stands from fundamental flaws world order. As a result, they share a determination to create a new world order that will better accommodate the interests of Russia and China as defined by their current leaders." I found that piece fascinating. Your thoughts?
HEWITT: It was a fascinating piece. China has flipped the America card and the Russia card and shuffled the deck, so now it's Russia and China against the United States and a fraying NATO. President Biden got in and he immediately gave them short range missile treaty that Putin wanted. He followed that up, as Tom Cotton likes to point out, by giving them Nord Stream. Then Putin, the maligned but very rational and cold-eyed KGB agent, watches Afghanistan collapse, and he has concluded he can move.
The only thing that matters to me, Bret, right now is what's in our lethal aid package? Not the 8,500 soldiers mobilized, pray for them and their families. But what did we send them? Did we send them land to sea missiles to threaten the Russian Navy? Did we send them surface to air missiles to threaten Russian fighters? I know they need anti-tank missiles. We did apparently send them. What matters now what we give Ukraine to defend themselves and nothing else, and we haven't given them enough, and we haven't given it fast enough.
BAIER: And quickly, Amy, how he handles this moment, could it change the impact of how far he is handling other things.
WALTER: Potentially it also means that a lot of the issues that he would like to get across, particularly his domestic agenda, may be upended by an international crisis that he is going to have to take charge of.
BAIER: Never predict all these things. Panel, as always, thank you.
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