lab in chiwuhan, china. and in east palestine, the new technique to track contaminated water from that city. and the growing concern to other cities taking in truckloads of contaminated soil. and an image in oklahoma, cnn is on the scene. welcome to the lead i m jake tapper. we start with the groundbreaking assertion with the u.s. energy department that the covid-19 pandemic likely began from a lab leak in wuhan, china. this all comes after the energy department updated its 2021 report with this claim, saying it made the new conclusion, based on new evidence coming to light. two sources telling cnn the department is issuing the report with, quote, low confidence. that s a term that doesn t mean that they don t believe their own conclusion. it means that the evidence as of now is only circumstantial. the new assertion reveals that the u.s. intelligence community is more divided than ever on how the pandemic began. four other agencies in the u.s. government said the outbr
natural origin, from animals to humans, that that s where it happenbut giving to circumstantial evidence to the lab theory, it s about a 30 minute drive to the institute of virology. but jake, go two blocks to the seafood market and that s where the wuhan cdc is located so that in itself is very speculative. and the cdc is a bsl-2, a little lower level of research, they still looked into that and coronaviruses. i do want to read you what the chinese have to say about this, by the way. the foreign ministry coming out quite strong. they from the podium today said that china has always actively supported and participated in global science-based origin tracing. the relate parties should stop stir-frying the argument of a laboratory leak and stop vilifying china and politicizing the issue. they also said, jake, that the w.h.o. concluded in the field
information. there s 12 specifics for information. including any communications between employees of these agencies and employees of the cdc in wuhan and the institute of virology. so, again, nothing conclusive here but this is just fuelling the fire on capitol hill and getting more answers. and i just learned from a republican aide, jake that the first live hear on the select committee on covid will be on march 8th. now, david, you ve been to wuhan specifically three times since january 2020. in 2021, you did an in-depth analysis on the lab. what did you learn? well, it s interesting what pamela pointed out there, the two labs in focus, the wuhan institute of virologist, that s a bsl lab. biosafety 4. it s about 30 minutes from the seafood market, jake which was the first amp floridafication point if you will. that s where the early cases were linked to and those getting sick said they had been gathering. so the thought was if that was
team visit that it was highly unlikely that a lab leak happened. but we should also point out that the w.h.o. asked for a second visit and china said no. stir-frying the argument, interesting language from the chinese government. david culver and pamela brown, thank you. with me, tom friedman, the former director of the cdc. tom, the u.s. department of energy with the report with low confidence based on circumstantial evidence. it goes against the findings of four other u.s. intelligence agencies although it does also go along with the fbi conclusion. what do you say right now to americans who don t know what to believe? jake, there s a bottom line here. which is that neither lab leak nor spillover from animal we don t know, that s the absolutely truth here, we don t know. but what we do know, lab leak
you know, the story couldn t get any crazier, it just did. i guess it s not too crazy that elon musk would say something, you know, that would draw controversy but he effectively defending, rushed to his defense, after the shocking comments. he said that the media is racist in one tweet. then he went on to elaborate on the tweet, not really doing himself any favors. now he s saying he doesn t always agree with what adams does. but that he finds the dilbert cartoon funny, jake. yeah, nobody is talking about the dilbert car scartoon. thank you so much. an american citizen was killed in the west bank an eruption over the weekend where a rare peace talk with jordan overshadowed sparked by the shooting of two israeli brothers near a palestinian town. israeli officials quickly dubbed that a terrorist attack. and hours later riots broke out. israeli settlers throwing rocks