trump with quite the opening statement on the chinese communist party and president xi jinping. we have a lot to unpack from last night s hearing held by the new house committee on china. plus a new nonpartisan report is detailing more of the failures that led to the january 6th capitol attack. and also ahead, we ll break down what happened at the supreme court as justices heard arguments on president joe biden s student loan forgiveness plan. good morning and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, march 1st. march already. i m jonathan lemire, thanks for starting your day with us. amid rising tensions between the two countries the new house select committee on the strew edgic competition between the united states and the chinese communist party held its first hearing last night. in prime time a bipartisan group of lawmakers set the stage for what republican chairman mike gallagher called an existential struggle over the future of america. we may call this a strategi
those comments were delivered to a new house select committee on china. we have a lot to get to this morning from the panel s prime time hearing. meanwhile, a trip to china by a putin ally is increasing concerns that beijing will ramp up support for russian forces. back here at home, president joe biden s student loan forgiveness plan went before the supreme court yesterday with the conservative majority expressing some skepticism about wiping away debt for some borrowers. also ahead, reaction to an historic defeat in chicago. for the first time in four decades, the city s mayor has lost a reelection bid. we ll get to that. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it is wednesday, march 1st. joe has the morning off, but along with willie and me, we have, of course, the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, and the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass is
we did not fund a gain-of-function research at the wuhan institute of virology. i keep an open mind as to what the origin is. the cdc was responsible for those kinds of guidelines to schools, not me. would you have any reason to cover up any new scientific evidence relating to the origins of the covid-19 virus? absolutely not. john: a live look at capitol hill where dr. anthony fauci, the face of the federal response to the covid pandemic, as testifying publicly for the very first time since retiring from government service. it s been quite a hearing so far. hello, i m john roberts in washington. it begins a new week, sandra. sandra: welcome, everyone. i m sandra smith in new york and this is america reports. they ve been pressing fauci on everything, from gain-of-function research to what triggered the outbreak in the first place. john: 16 is quick to deny allegations he tried to cover up the possibility that the pandemic originated from a laboratory in china,
it poses no threat or harm to anybody. john: i m sorry, that was may 16th. but he did say, yes, we did. we did fund gain-of-function research in wuhan. tony fauci has been very careful to say we did not fund gain-of-function research on this virus. but could you still make a connection? of course. they are using synthetic biology to alter features of the natural backbone of a sars coronavirus of undetermined origin. we don t know what the predecessor was to covid-19 that they used the synthetic biology to adapt it to make it more of virulent. but it was funded by eco-health alliance in new york, whose president is soon to be disbarred from federal government contracting capabilities and duties for his