CNN host Erin Burnett pressed Democratic California Rep. Raul Ruiz on Monday over why he believes the coronavirus lab leak theory was dismissed early on.
Ruiz appeared on “Erin Burnett OutFront” to discuss the recent House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, during which Republicans grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci. (RELATED: ‘Jail Fauci’: Grandma Goes Viral After Epic Troll)
“But on that lab leak theory, I remember when Senator Tom Cotton first came out with an article commentary about that. It was very hastily squelched. Do you feel comfortable at this point that you know why that happened?” Burnett asked. “Do you feel comfortable that that really was just because they felt they had other things to focus on at the time and it wasn‘t worth talking about at that moment? Or do you still have questions as to why that was really shunted aside and put as sort of at the time ‘you‘re really out there’ talking point?”
“Well, I think that the whole notion of the lab leak was bundled with the complete narrative, that I had just mentioned, about Dr. Fauci [and] Dr. Collins creating the Coronavirus pandemic and that it leaked,” Ruiz stated.
“Now, if you dissect the possibility that this could be a[n] actual lab leak from the whole extreme accusations then one can say, and we still say this based on the evidence that we have, that indeed it could be a lab leak or and it could also be an animal transmission origin,” Ruiz responded. “But it was not the entire package of the narrative that they were trying to push that is manufacturer[ing] distrust and puts a lot of public health’s lives in jeopardy that they’ve been getting.”
Fauci denied that studies funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) could be the origin of the SARS CoV2 virus during the House Select Subcommittee’s hearing. However, he did concede there was a “difference between the viruses that were funded by the NIH sub-award versus anything else anyone in China might be doing.”
Earlier in January, Dr. David Morens, who was Fauci’s right-hand man at the NIAID stated that he never considered the possibility of COVID-19 coming from a lab, despite not exploring “any of the scientific evidence behind a potential lab leak or an engineered virus.”
Since the pandemic, Fauci publicly dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, but by 2021 former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stated Fauci had briefed world leaders on the possibility of the idea being true.
