Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Samantha Renck about the World Health Organization’s latest announcement on COVID-19, former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and more.
Cotton discussed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) announcement that it is no longer pursuing a lab leak theory regarding the origins of COVID-19 and what the United States’ relationship will look like with China. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Tom Cotton Blasts ‘Apologists’ In Media For Accepting Chinese Propaganda Surrounding Coronavirus Origins)
Cotton criticized the WHO, saying that they have been a “Chinese Communist stooge from the very beginning.” He called for an “independent team of western scientists” to investigate everything that happened in Wuhan from the Fall of 2019, “to include the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” (RELATED: WHO Panel Says COVID Lab Leak Theory ‘Extremely Unlikely,’ Not Worth Exploring Further)
The coronavirus escaping from a Chinese lab has been described as “extremely unlikely” by WHO team lead Dr. Peter Embarek. However, a State Department report issued in January said the U.S. government “has reason to believe that researchers inside the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”
Dr. Peter Daszak, a close associate with China’s premier bat-based coronavirus researcher and a key figure in directing taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, also described the process of manipulating coronaviruses in a lab as “pretty easily” accomplished.
Cotton has questioned the origin of the coronavirus outbreak early in the pandemic, saying, “The reason I have raised these questions from the very beginning is because of China’s statements and their actions,” Cotton told the DCNF. “After concealing the virus for many weeks in December and then minimizing its severity for most of January, they then peddle an origin story about the food market in Wuhan.”
“The mainstream media are largely apologists for Chinese communists and they will accept Chinese communist propaganda,” Cotton said. “They immediately try to accuse anyone who raises these reasonable questions as conspiracy theorists that are accusing China of creating a biological weapon.”
The second impeachment trial of Trump began Tuesday, nearly three weeks after President Joe Biden took office.
“Even though Donald Trump moved out of the White House three weeks ago, he’s still living rent-free in the Democrats’ heads,” Cotton said. “They’re just obsessed with Donald Trump. It’s the one thing that unifies their party.”
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