Washington Post Columnist Josh Rogin joins Jack Armstrong to talk about gain-of-function research and the failures that lead-up to the pandemic.
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The Armstrong and Getty Show, and let's let's send Dr facts. I have to Well, now you're getting into something. If the point that you are making is that the grant that was funded as a sub award from Eco Health to WUHAN created sauce Kovie too. That's where you are getting let me finish. We don't know the lab, but all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab, and there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself. I totally totally resent the law that you are now propagating, Senator. So there's a lot of back back and forth. Actually, Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul and Dr Fauci, you have gotten into it a couple of times, and a few times it's been over masks and this and that, and I and I thought, you know, Rand, you might be going too far here or what. But but but on the stuff of the doing the gain of function research and what Fouccia knew and when he knew it, I think Rand might be on the right side of that. And one of the people I go to on those kinds of things is Josh Rogan, and he might be the go to guy out there in terms of a journalist who's looked into the COVID and where it came from, and China's rolling at Josh. Welcome back to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Thanks for coming on. So we opened with a clip of the back and forth between Rand Paul and Dr Fauci last week. We've still got the whole problem that the gravitational pull of Donald Trump is equal to that of the sun. And you know, every conversation ends up me, Okay, Rand Paul's a Trump guy. Fauci's and never Trump or so I'm on the side of and you know you choose based on that. What I want to know is, are are we funding this gain of function research? And shouldn't we be doing this? I mean getting to the point that this was a man made disaster. I think we keep forgetting right. COVID is a man made disaster. We created this damn thing. Yeah, I think, first of all, I agree with you the two things that you said are related, because you know, I'm not an anti Foucci guy. I'm just a guy who wants to figure out how he got into this mess, how we got how the pandemic started, because it's crucial to prevent the next pandemic. If we don't figure out how we get how this started, we won't know what to do in our policy and our politics to fix the system. So we know this never happens again. And it's clear in that sort of Senate hearing, but also in a record of what Anthony Fauci has been saying and doing over the last year and a half that he doesn't want an examination into our relationship people Labs resisted edit in every step. He's been very consistent. Every time he's asked about it. He deflects, well, it's not Gaina function research. Yeah, but that's not the point. The point is that it was risky, and you knew it was risky. And by the way he created that definition of Gaina function research, it's like a loophole, right. He defined it in such a way that you never have to review any of the stuff that you're funding in Muhan And that's exactly what happened. He built the loophole, not just him and I Angient, Francis Collins and all these guys who are invested in this industry. They've built a loophole into it. Then nothing's gained. A function research so we don't have to review anything. And then when the pandemic hits and willhan and everyone's like, oh wait a second, maybe we should have reviewed this very risky research. And what Faugie did was he not only sort of played dumbo, I don't what are you talking about. Everything's fine when he was asked on CNN, hey, do you still think it's a good idea considering these Huhan labs just told us to go score ourselves when the pandemic and we wanted to do the investigation, and he said, well, I guess we have to do it because we have to the battor in China. So he's got an agenda here, which is to continue the research that he's in charge of and to expand it actually sixfold, and to get more US taxpayers to pay more US scientists like Anthony Fauci and his friends to do more work with these Chinese labs. And all I'm saying is, before we do that, shouldn't we figure out if the labs sparked the pandemic? Yeah? I would say so, and uh and is it and our human beings capable of doing this story research and not letting it leak out because you've told us in other interviews, uh that this is not uncommon this, this has happened a number of times where where things leak out. So maybe it's just not something human beings can do can do well. I want to clear one thing up because he said they're invested, did you mean financially or just um, you mean financially and their careers and so what you have to understand is that in the world of virus research is thet NE. Fauci is the head of it. He's funding almost all of it in one way or another hymn in the NIH. They are what spending US taxpayer dollars to sponsor risky research all over the world. And what the National security people are saying. And if you saw it today, Menendez and Rubio and Risch and warnered like these are not you know, fire breathing maga. These are the heads of the Senate Farm Relations and Senate Intel committees put out a letter today and they said, we have to force China to let us investigate these labs, and we have to review all of our relationships with these labs. That's the point, that's what Faucie is resisting because you know, even if the lab leak theory isn't true, what's clear is that they have no idea what's going on in these labs that they're funding, and how can we have a system we're we're funding these labs doing risky research and then they won't even know let us in the lab where you literally can't walk into the lab when the pandemic hits on their doorstep. That's a crazy system argue just about the system works. He's saying that we should keep that system and expand that system. And I say, wait a second, before we expand the system and make empthys fast to the head of that new system, maybe we should figure out if it leaked out from the lab. Man. I hope maybe you do. But I hope you realize how important you are on this story, because I just I don't think there are enough people that understand it and enough people that have the gramatas to get anybody's attention, because you are you know, you're not a trumper um by any means. If anybody reads your stuff, you know, I would hope that the other half of America would listen to you and say, WHOA, let's slow down on this. So do you think Fauci and his crowd just don't. They just don't think we're we're smart enough to understand what they're doing, and he's afraid we'll shut them down. His message on CNN was trust me, don't worry, trust me, he said, We've always been safe, We'll continue to be safe. We're gonna keep doing it. And in fact, if if you look at his interview this weekend in the New York Times, he proposes expanding this research everything influenza H one and when you name it, he wants to do risky research all over the world, including in labs in China. Now, I think, I do think that the narrative is changing very very slowly, to be sure, not just because it made because a lot of people who are like, hey, wait a second, that's crazy, and maybe we need some oversight of all these scientists because they're checking their own homework, right, And then of course they're all telling each other that everything's fine, but look around the world, everything's not fine, okay, And you know, the w h O was going to try again, and the Chinese are gonna go tell them to screw themselves, and we'll be back where we started in another year. Unless somebody gets off the pot and does something. Okay, and the Biden administration is not going to do it unless they're pushed to do it. But more and more people in Congress, and now more Democrats, which is really a I gotta tell you, Jack, it's a big change. Like I was actually surprised when I saw that today Menendez and Warner, they're you know, they're not gonna say that and and go sort of pushing the administration to do more to investing in the origins if they didn't really believe it, right, if they didn't really think that this was really important. So I think there is a bipartisan opportunity here, and unfortunately that means asking Anthony Founcy a bunch of uncomfortable questions that has clearly been avoiding for over a year. Yeah, I would say so. Um. And then there was that story that France the Chinese kicked the French out and France warned us and saying, hey, they're they're they're not letting us keep an eye on them anymore, and we don't think they're being careful. And you know the fact that that story is a couple of years old, but nobody mentioned that at the beginning of this pandemic, and somebody the government knew that, you know, in April when I wrote the story breaking the news of the cables, the diplomatic cables that reported back in ten that the Wuhan student virology was had bad safety standards and that they were doing risky coronavirus research on bats and how they could become more infection with these humans. You know, I was called every name in the book, right, And like you said, I'm not a Trump guy, I'm not a pro trunk, I'm not an a Trump guy. I just try to call him like I see him. And you know, what you have to realize is that the Chinese Communist Party controls everything, and that our scientific collaboration is not between Anthony Fauci and those very nice Chinese scientists. That's not the way it works over there. They have a different system. Those Chinese scientists can't tell us the truth or they're gonna get killed literally literally will be killed or worse. And so we have to understand that dealing with the totalitarian dictatorship means that they're going to take our engagement and use it against us, literally weaponized against us at every opportunity. And so that's why I think when Anthony Fauci has asked directly about that and he's like, well, nothing, there's no problem here. I think that's where a lot of people can see the disconnectants can see why we can't have scientific collaboration that's actually a dual use military technology that our adversary is going to use fill the machine they're pointing at us, and that we're gonna pay for that, we should still pay for it. You know that's crazy? Yeah. Wow. Josh Rogan, global opinions columnists for the Washington Post and from my money, the best person out there on this stuff. So this columny you had recently, Chinese China's vaccine profiteering at the u N is being funded by US taxpayers. I was unaware of this. This is a really maddening. Can you explain that to people? You know, this is really crazy, because you know the United what China has done with its vaccines as they've gone around the world, threatening, bullying, coercing countries, literally hanging shots over their heads and and and forcing them to choose between the Chinese Communist Party's politics of the own citizens lives. That's how China is using its power and its influenced You know, now we see what paging wants to be in a world in a world power. But the worst part of it is that the international systems were distributing to vaccines to poor people, which is, we're the majority funder of which we're donating the most too, decided to use all of that money to buy these Chinese vaccines from the government owned Chinese company at a markup. And essentially what that means is that US taxpayers are giving the Chinese government money to send vaccines that don't work, by the way, to poor countries. And sort of pointing that out was seen to be somehow controversial. But all I did was follow the money we paid Kovacs, which is the international system may pay the Chinese state owned company by the way, the vaccines don't even work, So that seems crazy to mean we shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, just a little bit from your article. A senior US official told you that it's not actually the US donated money. Um, but as you write, that claim is specious because money is fungible. Kind of an argument is that dividing the counts on paper is meaningless. The United States is funding Kovacs, and Kovacs is paying China, you know, And yeah, it's kind of crazy to say that we give them two billion dollars and that's not the two billion dollars they're going to use to pay the Chinese. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't pass the last test. But you know what's what's even more crazy is that, you know, the Biden administration they have an ability to influence these multilateral organizations. That's why Trump pulled us out because all these multilateral organizations kept doing the wrong things, doing the thing that China wanted them to do. And the Biden team is like, oh no, these organizations could be useful and I think they can, but not if you just let them continue to do the wrong thing. So my words, the Bid administrations like, hey, guys, why don't you get on this and you know, tell Kovacs to not spend Americans money on crappy each Chinese vaccinees. I just gonna make the problem worse because they give people people of false sense of security, they go out and spread the virus. Right, it's actually we're actually spending money to pay China and makes the situation worse. And what Biden people say. It was like, oh, yeah, well, I guess it's too late, you know. Um, we're talking with Josh Rogan. I really appreciate your time today. Man, he's a good read anytime he writes about any of this stuff. Really, I think the best out there. And man, stay on that because the world needs to know what's going on. And you're you're, you're, you're in their jock straps. Thank thank god, Josh Rogan, Global Opinions columnists of the Washington Post, Thanks for your time today. So a little more on this this So it's called COVACS. That's the w h O S. You know, we've gotta get vaccines. We've gotta get shots out to people all around the world. And UH, to give you an uh, we're the good guys in this story by far, and China is the bad guys in the world. Needs to know this because we're locked in a war with China for you know which which one of these polls are you gonna be pulled toward the United States or China? The two super hours in the world. China has contributed zero money to the Tough the World Project to try to get vaccines to people. Zero money and zero shots from their national stockpile of their vaccine, while the United States has pledged four billion dollars and distributed fifty five million donated shots and promised to donate five million more no charge. So the US taxpayer by far the good guy the superhero in this story, and China the evil villain. And I don't think enough people know this, And the Biden administration, by the way, could do a hell of a better job of making sure the world does know where the good guy on this and China is the bad guy, because we gotta win this war of of convincing people