Possibly came out of a laboratory in china . What are the prospects of that . There was a study recently that we can make available totu you that a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there, the sequences of bats as they evolved, and the mutation that it took to get to the point they were at now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human. So, the paper will be available. I dont have the authorization right now that we can make that available to you. Reporter on the protests that weve seen people wanting the economies to open, does that concern you, though, as a Health Expert . When you see folks congregate, and are you worried that thats encouraged . Well, im looking at it from a Public Health standpoint. I certainly understand the frustration of people but myt main role in the task force is to make recommendations to protect the health and they safety of the american people, and i hope that people understand that that is the reason we are doing what we are doing, and hopefully that will put an end to this. President trump i will say this, im very, very satisfied to the decisions. Listening to experts, listening to my gut, the feeling of the Vice President , and really many others when we put it all together. Im very look, if we didnt do what we did at the time we couldve lost more than 2 Million People. I really believe that. I could show you charts of other places that gave it a shot and they are not doing well. And i would show it to you right now. I dont want to embarrass anybody. But they gave that a shot. Its an automatic. I mean, everybody would say, lets do that, until they sit down and start thinking, and we couldve lost more than 2 Million People. Itnd couldve been much more thn that, by the way. We have one that says from 1. 6 to 2. 2, but it really couldve been more than that. But i look at one in particular, one country in particular that is using the herd mentality. Not working out very well. Now, with all of that being said, we have to get back to work. We will be crossing lines very soon. In many cases, in some cases we are well on the way down and in other cases we are right on the top and heading down. We are heading in the right direction. I saw some numbers from new jersey, hes having a very tough time. Hes doing a great job, the governor. Phil murphy. Hes starting to get some reall good signs. Ng looking at the new york numbers, theyve been devastated, obviously, but some really good things are starting to happen. So if we wouldve done Something Different first of all it wouldve not been sustainable. He wouldve had people, they wouldve been furious at you and me and everybody it would not of been sustainable. Because you look at some of the hospitals as an example. A certain hospital right near where i grew up in queens, and you had body bags all over the floor of that hospital. You know the one im talking about. All over the floor of the hospital. Now multiply that times 12 or 15 because thats the type of numbers youre talking about. 12 or 15. And it would not have been there wouldve been an insurrection. Nobody wouldve understood that, whereas right now, nobody can be blamed. And there is no blame. We are all in a situation that was caused, that should have been solved long ago. It couldve been solved are probably very easily. Look, this is a tough enemy, but probably very easily if a certain country did what they shouldve done, and we are just starting to learn those facts. Ou but what we did was the right thing. What we did was the right thing. With that being said, we want to get back and we are going to be opening up states to being opened by very capable people. It is also a point of sale, as they say in a different business. Its the point to be able to look at where the testing is taking place. Were going to help them, tremendous tests over the last little while and were going to work with the states and we are going to help them, but they know every inch of land in their states. I watched the governor of arkansas, asa, you saw that, i thought he was terrific, i watched the governor of oklahoma over the weekend, he was being interviewed, it was terrific. Theyve done it tight and theyke were very strong, and they were very tired. They have more beds than they needed and thats a good thing. Y but ive seen some very, very good things. I think youre going to have some very positive events taking place over a very short period of time. I think with that, we will see you tomorrow but really, this has been a situation where a lot of great people have been involved in a lot of great decisions have been made. Thank you allot very much. [reporter questions] tucker the president , you saw, just wrapping up his portion of the daily Coronavirus Press briefing. Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight. If you were just watching that, kind of an amazing exchange right on the stage there, just live. A reporter in the room asked, what do you make of the president of reports that this virus emerged from a lab in wuhan . People are saying that. At that point, dr. Anthony fauci took the mic and pointed to a study he said was forthcoming that proves the virus was not genetically engineered. What do you notice about that answer . The first thing you notice is it doesnt answer the question that was asked. The question is not, was it genetically engineered . The question is, did it come somehow from a lab . And he didnt answer that. Instead, he effectively misled. Not clear why he did that. We brought you fresh reporting last night on the questionel of where the deadly coronavirus came from. Tonight, we have more. We spent much of the day speaking to highly informed officials in the u. S. Government as well as season specialists on china, and heres the picture that emerged from those conversations. First, many in the intelligence world with experience in china suspected right away that the story the Chinese Government was telling about this virus was almost certainly alive here the first indication of that was the torrent of obvious nonsense coming from official sources in beijing. Initially, chinese sources, you may remember this, claimed the virus had jumped from an obscure, scaly animal called a pangolin that was sold in the wuhan wet market, but that explanation didnt make any sense. Wet markets are seafood markets. Pangolins are mammals. So, for that matter, are bats. S. So in the face of skepticism, the chinese authorities blamed italian personnel who had been near wuhan the year before for an International Sporting event. The italians must have brought the virus to china, the chinese vesaid. When the Italian Government complained about that, the chinese shifted the blame to the u. S. Military. The American ArmedServices Must have infected wuhan, the chinese had. While they were saying this behindthescenes chinese officials were working frantically to destroy relevant evidence of where it actually came from. Doctorso and journalists in wuhn who raised him comfortable questions about the virus disappeared. Some of them may have been murdered. At one point in january, scientists in shanghai sequence to the dna from the virus. The information they gathered from that couldve been crucial to researchers around the world who were trying to understand the virus and develop vaccines against it. In other words, the rest of us. But the Chinese Government ordered that viral sample destroyed in the lab notes from that shredded. The scientists themselves were disciplined for daring to conduct this research, and their lab was shut down. The Chinese Government then quarantined the entire city of wuhan. Up to 5 Million People fled. But apparently, relatively few of them were allowed to travel to beijing, the chinese capital. Instead, they flew to western cities around the world. Now, the most in the United States, reactions to a crisis like this seem grotesque, really unimaginable. But to mandarin speakers who follow china carefully and have for a long time, these are highly familiar moves. The first reflex of the Chinese Government is always to lie in order to hide failure and avoid embarrassment. In 2003, for example, the Chinese Government lied about the initial outbreak of sars, another coronavirus. In july 2011, two passenger trains traveling in opposite directions it smashed into each other at high speed outside a chinese city. They collided on a railroad bridge. Four passenger cars derailed and tumbled below. Within hours authorities arrived and pushed the passenger cars into a pit and began covering them with dirt. By some accounts there were still survivors at that time come inside the passenger cars. In their initial statements they said that a Lightning Strike caused the crash. Then later they said itin was te shouting is the cost of the crash. The media ignore the crash entirely except for positive news or thats news issued by authorities. This was the template for chinas official response to the twuhan virus. From the early days of the outbreak, chinese diplomats around the world insisted there was no chance whatsoever the virus had come from a lab. They sometimes insisted that even when no one had asked them, as if they were reading from a script. It soon became very obvious what was going on. Englishlanguage academic journalists had raised for years questions about the Safety Standards in wuhan bio research labs. An article in nature from 2017 noted that some scientists outside china worry about pathogens escaping from the facility. Classified state department a year later voiced at the same. Chinese scientists themselves talked about working with extremely dangerous pathogens in wuhan. As of today, says someone in a position to know, there is almost unanimous agreement in the american intelligence gathering agencies that the virus currently destroy much of the world emerged fromy a lab n wuhan. Almost unanimous. That is a phrase almost never used to describe any conclusion coming out of the intel community. Government officials in this country have believed that for some time now. Ntrn theyve been unable to interest our media or our epidemiologists in writing about it. In recent weeks analysts from the cia, the nsa and others have reached staff at the New York Times about the origins of this virus, butac the newspaper has still not reported their findings. K s at the same time, and this may otdbe directly related, china hs been waging an unremitting propaganda war on thetl subject. Chinese officials have tried to squelch all conversations about who might be responsible for this pandemic by inflaming the political sensitivities and race guilts of american elites. Watch this clip from early last month as a spokesperson forli te Chinese Foreign ministry tries to dictate how American Press outlets describe the virus. Social media say this coronavirus is a china virus. This is extremely irresponsible, and we firmly oppose that. Tucker among the many ironies and what you just heard, even now, even today, the disease is widely referred to in china as the wuhan virus. Our news outlets, meanwhile, almost always call it covid19. That term does not translate to chinese. Back in january under influence from chinese leaders who were anxious to deflect responsibility for it. Once they succeeded in removing any hint of origin for the name of the virus, the chinese launched a campaign to tar anyone who mentioned wuhan is a dangerous racist. Racism is not the right tool to cover your own incompetence lecture to Chinese State media when President Trump refer to the wuhan virus. American media parroted that line almost precisely, as no doubt chinese expected they would. The president referred to the coronavirus as a foreign virus. I think its going to smack coming across to a lot of americans as smacking of xenophobia. Xenophobic wartime trump where he thinks the only path and i was to declare public enemy number one in somewhat racist terms. The xenophobia and the racism in the outbreak is such a common thing and it is incredibly dangerous, it is problematic and it is scary, and i just really want to call that out. Reporter why do you keep r calling this the chinese virus . Why do you keep saying thats . A lot of people say its racist. Its not racist at all. Not at all. It comes from china, thats why. Tucker fools. But not a major victory for the Chinese Government. Media outlets are relatively easy to corrupt, given the relatively low level sophistication of the people who work there. The Chinese Government have bolder aims than that. The chinese instructed their employees and assets in the United States to exert influenco on elected officials. For example, according to an official, beijing has instructed diplomats at the consulate and sympathies go to work with local officials andct members of congress to push back against anyone who gets too far out on blaming china for this. That is what they are doing. Apparently, its working. Heres connecticut senator chris murphy on cnn wearlier this week. The reason we are in the crisis we are in today is not because of anything china did. Its not because of anything the w. H. O. Od did. Its because of what this president did. Tucker its not because anything china did. Other members of congress voiced similar views, often in eerily similar language. Barbara lee of california, long considered a strongly prochina voice tweeted this to the president , diseases dont have nationalities. China isnt to blame for you fumbling this crisis. On march 12, congresswoman judy chu of los angeles wrote this china didnt unleash anything. Virus spread as viruses do. Blaming china and insisting on calling this the wuhan virus, even though every medical expert said not to come is putting peoples lives in danger. Stop politicizing this and put people first. It just week before chu wrote that, a man who runs the chinese consulate in los angeles met with the Los Angeles Mayor about the american response to coronavirus. He tweeted about it that day. He said this, looking forward to working closely with. The ciy of los angeles to addresshe thif common Public Health challenge and develop closer ties between our cities and peoples. Now, we have no idea what they talked about in that meeting that day, it would be interesting to know. We reached out today to a number of california lawmakers with a history of closeness to china, including dianne feinstein, whod once employed a chinese spy come in to see if they have spoken to chinese officials recently. None of them responded to our calls. But its not just happening in california. According to a study and a story reported by national review, the head of the state Senate Wisconsin recently received multiple emails from the wife of the chinese consulate general in chicago. She asked him to propose a resolution praising china for its handling of the wuhan virus outbreak. The entire storyry of how there government of china successfully shaped our understanding of this pandemic of the virus, as wellnd as our response to it, may take years to tell. In fact, it may never fully be told at all. We promise to do our best on the show. But it is clear how china sees this pandemic. China doesnt see this simply or even primarily as a Public Health disasters in which thousands are dying. China sees this as part of a larger geopolitical struggle for control of the world. Most Americans Still dont perceive that or understand the profound gravity of the stakes involved, but how couldd they . Our leaders have lied to us about it for years. Bryan dean wright, a democrat and former cia officer, we are happy to have him tonight. Bryan, thanks so much for coming on. It is striking to me and its a matter of Public Record that the Chinese Government is attempting to leverage its relations with our elected officials to control how we talk about a virus they unleashed on the world. How do you feel when you hear that . How can anybody not feel outraged . We all know, weve all lived in a country for the past 30 years that has been sold out to the Chinese Government. Your promise in the late 1990s that china goes into the wto and we will all benefit. That didnt take place. We watched our intellectual property be stolen for threet years, and now weve watched some of our elected leaders, and im sorry to say, many on my side of the aisle, capitulate to the Chinese Government again. Here we are, 30 years and weve learned nothing. So, im outraged. It makes me incredibly angry. Tucker it seems like a pretty straightforward question. We reached out to senator feinstein and a number of elected officials today and asked, have you s had contact since the outbreak with a number of china officials . And not a single one responded. What do you think we should infer from that . I think they are nervous. Theyre a ton of people, either because they are idiots or they have some degree of knowledge of relationships behind the scenes with the Chinese Government some of them, in fact, could be chinese agents, their actual intelligent service, god forbid. They are nervous and they know that if nothing else, the party has, certainly for the past three months, doubled down on their prochina rhetoric. And the u. S. Intelligence committee in collecting this information, not only the information we know through the cia and nsa and others, but also reaching out to our allies like the australians, koreans, and japanese, if we know with a high degree of confidence that the chinese in fact release this virus, accidentally or otherwise, and caused this pan