Episode 140 – CNN Faces the Truth About China's Coronavirus Coverup. Pennsylvania GOP Legislators Flex Political Muscle. Will Democrats Try to Prosecute President Trump？
Breaking News: China lied about the coronavirus pandemic, and CNN finally had to acknowledge this fact after using the virus as a source of blame for the Trump administration for the better part of a year. Hot Takes: Jake Tapper on the lead covering China s lies. A post on Chinese government social media shows an image of a bloodied knife and an Australian soldier holding that knife to the throat of an Afghan child. In Pennsylvania, state legislators are starting to flex a little bit of political muscle.
00:00:00.000Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. China lied.
00:00:22.140They had information about the coronavirus. They sat on that information. They took active steps to conceal the information they had.
00:00:31.720And CNN finally had to acknowledge this fact after using the coronavirus as a source of blame for the Trump administration for the better part of a year.
00:00:42.540Now, Jake Tapper on the lead covering China's lies. Take a listen.
00:00:47.740We have some breaking news for you in our world lead. CNN has obtained leaked documents from inside China, documents that reveal the missteps and the chaos of the Chinese government's early response to the coronavirus pandemic.
00:00:59.240The documents are from Hubei province, home to the city of Wuhan, where the pandemic is thought to have started.
00:01:04.640They show authorities released misleading public data on the number of deaths and the number of cases.
00:01:10.580They took, on average, three weeks to diagnose a new case and much more.
00:01:14.860CNN's Nick Payton Walsh is breaking the story for us right now.
00:01:19.240An unprecedented leak of internal Chinese documents to CNN reveals for the first time what China knew in the opening weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic but did not tell the world.
00:01:31.040A whistleblower who said they worked inside the Chinese healthcare system share the documents with CNN online, which show a chaotic local response from the start.
00:01:41.700This lack of transparency sort of also contributed to the crisis.
00:01:47.160Seeing information in black and white was very revealing and instructive.
00:01:52.980CNN has verified them with half a dozen experts, a European security official and using complex digital forensic analysis looking at their source code.
00:02:02.880We only wish that CNN and others in the mainstream media had the courage and the ability to accurately report on China's disinformation campaign around the coronavirus earlier.
00:02:14.140But it's good to see that they are validating what we were telling people on this podcast, what the president was telling people from the briefing podium.
00:02:23.260And I'm grateful that now we've got strong vaccine candidates.
00:02:27.660We've got a tougher posture on China than ever before in our nation's history.
00:02:31.940And I'm hopeful that no future president would ever roll back the China policy of the Trump administration that is going to bring jobs home to our country, that is going to re-domesticate medical infrastructure,
00:02:45.520and that is going to stop China from using organizations like the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization to advance their interests and their lives at the expense of our great people.
00:02:58.720China has gone next level in their smearing of the great American ally, Australia, and the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is demanding an apology.
00:03:13.020This comes as China's senior government official posts an image to the Internet of a bloodied knife and an Australian soldier holding that knife to the throat of an Afghan child.
00:03:26.320The repugnant post made today of an image, a falsified image, of an Australian soldier threatening a young child with a knife.
00:03:44.660A post made on an official Chinese government Twitter account, posted by the Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lijian Zhao, is truly repugnant.
00:04:05.060It is deeply offensive to every Australian, every Australian who has served in that uniform, every Australian who serves in that uniform today,
00:04:21.800every one who has pulled on a uniform and served with Australians overseas from whatever nation, that they have done that.
00:04:33.800It is utterly outrageous and it cannot be justified on any basis whatsoever.
00:04:43.540The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this post.
00:04:50.540I agree with the Australians. China has gone too far here. They owe the people of Australia an apology.
00:04:57.540Let's hope we can have more productive reviews of our international engagement without this type of incendiary, improper, untruthful behavior from China.
00:05:08.540In Pennsylvania, state legislators are starting to flex a little bit of political muscle.
00:05:17.540Newsmax's Brian Truesdell has the story. Pennsylvania GOP introduces resolution to dispute election.
00:05:26.540The Republicans in the Pennsylvania General Assembly have introduced a six page resolution outlining the reasons for contesting results,
00:05:34.540specifically accusing officials in the executive branch of changing election law by allowing for vote by mail ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. on election day to be counted.
00:05:46.540And also the ability for folks in heavily Democrat counties to cure their ballots while folks in Republican counties were not given that same opportunity.
00:05:58.540The Pennsylvania legislature indicates that they may very well seek to seat their own slate of electors for the Electoral College.
00:06:07.540And they don't want their state to be known as a place of fraud and diluted legal ballots with a slew of illegal ballots.
00:06:17.540Bravo to the Pennsylvania legislature for protecting the integrity of the vote.
00:06:22.540We will follow it very closely leading up to the Electoral College.
00:06:33.540The left is already licking their lips to do so.
00:06:37.540CBS News has the story of the number of investigations that liberals hope to launch to smear and potentially even jail the president of the United States.
00:06:52.540The candidates who would end up prosecuting Trump weigh in on New York's criminal investigation.
00:06:58.540And throughout the story, we learn of this campaign for the district attorney position in Manhattan, where a grand jury is actively engaged in a criminal investigation that involves the president.
00:07:11.540The New York attorney general has also threatened charges and even the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. could get involved if there is not a pardon structure that protects the president and, frankly, the presidency.
00:07:35.540When scientists and experts said it couldn't be done in the middle of a pandemic, he delivered not one but two vaccines that show incredible promise to be able to save the world, save the economy, save the stock market, save jobs and create opportunity again for our country.
00:07:58.540They want to give the strongest possible rebuke of Donald Trump through the criminal process.
00:08:04.540And the reason they want to do that is because Donald Trump and his ideas, his ideology, his political realignment pose a tremendous threat to a corrupt political establishment throughout our country.
00:08:17.540An establishment that thinks that they can enrich themselves, enhance their quarterly earnings at the expense of our people.
00:08:24.540Donald Trump always put the people of this country first.
00:08:28.540He put our wages, our careers, our opportunities, our families before any foreign power or any special interest in Washington, D.C.
00:08:43.540He should pardon his administration officials, any targeted supporters, because this was an amazing era for our country over the last four years.
00:08:53.540And we can continue to show that great American promise and live up to it.
00:08:59.540If we continue to advance the ideas, the policies, the greatness that was so indicative of this last four years of the Trump era.
00:09:08.540I had an opportunity to go on the Lou Dobbs program last night after an interview that Lou did with Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch regarding the activity and inactivity and misguided activity of the federal government, the FBI, the Department of Justice.
00:09:26.540First, take a listen to Lou Dobbs and Tom Fitton.
00:09:29.540And on the heels of that, my conversation with Lou.
00:09:32.540This is a core civil rights issue and the state legislatures in these affected states have a moral and constitutional duty to make sure the election was run properly and that counts were not and that ballots were counted appropriately.
00:09:46.540So when is somebody going to get off their duff?
00:09:49.540When is somebody going to actually do something?
00:09:52.540Well, there are a few state legislators in Pennsylvania who are moving to do something.
00:09:59.540But the feckless leadership of the state legislature in Pennsylvania are afraid of their own shadow on this.
00:10:06.540And it's up to voters to let their state legislators know what they feel about this.
00:10:11.540I do have Republican colleagues who believe that we ought to just ignore the irregularities in voter registration.
00:10:18.540That we should turn a blind eye to ballot harvesting.
00:10:21.540And when you can't account the number of ballots cast against the number of people in a precinct, well, we should just accept that that's the new normal.
00:10:30.540President Trump has an obligation to the country, to his supporters and to the movement that he has built to ensure that we count the legal votes and reject the illegal ones.
00:10:42.540First, we should be encouraging state legislators who have the power to launch the investigations, to put a pause on certification, to in fact fulfill their constitutional duty.
00:10:54.540Second, we have to keep calling out the FBI and the Department of Justice.
00:10:58.540Lou, I have to correct one element of your last segment with Tom Fitton, a great American.
00:11:02.540You say, oh, well, these people resigned.
00:11:05.540They were just reshuffled to other parts of the Department of Justice.
00:11:09.540And it seems to be when people don't do their job or when they are misguided at the Department of Justice, they just sort of end up in an additional role.
00:11:17.540And maybe Sidney Powell had the right approach with fire hoses and Clorox.
00:11:21.540But we certainly know that we have not seen an active DOJ interested in protecting the civil rights of Americans who want to have their legal votes not diluted by illegal votes.
00:11:32.540And we had a red wave in everywhere in this country, Lou, but in three cities, three, you know, in Philadelphia, in Atlanta, you know, and, you know, in Detroit, everywhere else.
00:11:42.540Donald Trump had an overwhelming victory.
00:12:27.540And Bitcoin looks pretty compelling, pretty attractive as an alternative.
00:12:33.540I mean, you look at the United States, we just printed like $9 trillion, both in spending policy and in monetary policy.
00:12:41.540And it has to ultimately have some effect on the dollar.
00:12:45.540Now, right now, the dollar remains strong because if you look around the world, there's no other real currency you'd bet on.
00:12:51.540The dollar is the global reserve currency, and that's a good thing for our country.
00:12:56.540It allows us to be able to use the dollar to try to bring other nations in line with our commerce and our values without having to do so at the tip of a spear, without having to do so while risking the lives of America's service members in uniform.
00:13:16.540But the Bitcoin appeal seems to be that there is no centralized entity that can manipulate its value.
00:13:25.540There is a certain universe of coin of value, and that's not really manipulatable.
00:13:32.540It's in many ways a libertarian utopia currency.
00:13:36.540And so you see that doing well in a time of pandemic with people less apt to use cash.
00:13:43.540We'll continue to follow it, and we'll see if it gets over 20,000 and beyond.
00:13:48.540Revolver.News brings us the exclusive piece, Trump's ace.
00:13:56.540Win or lose, he can still devastate the deep state with these perfectly timed moves.
00:14:02.540And it calls for a series of pardons, including the pardoning of Edward Snowden, which I fully support, a call to declassify everything.
00:14:12.540There are still documents associated with the Russia hoax, the involvement of the CIA and foreign governments to try to destabilize our election and the presidency that need to be viewed by the public.
00:14:25.540And I think the Trump administration, particularly Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, can take action to get even more truth before the American people.
00:14:35.540The Revolver.News piece also calls for a burning down of the deep state, a real effort to ensure that these folks are not able to continue in their roles and continue harming our nation by weaponizing the FBI, the Department of Justice, the State Department, really anything that they can infiltrate.
00:14:55.540Also, we should bring our troops home. And the president is, in fact, doing this.
00:14:59.540You know, the deep state wants to stay in every faraway land for as long as possible because that generates contracting opportunities for the elites.
00:15:09.540But it really does harm to our nation's reputation in the world.
00:15:13.540And it just does harm to the people of our country to continue to have to endure and fund these forever wars.
00:15:19.540So check out Revolver.News and see what President Trump can do to play his aces whenever he chooses.
00:15:27.540Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, one of President Trump's nominees, has announced that he will step down on January 20th.
00:16:25.540Look, you got a lot of the newer tech internet based providers and startups that really want to see this net neutrality so that they have the opportunity to compete and that they don't see their content throttled by internet service providers.
00:16:42.540And then you have some of the larger players in the telecommunications industry indicating that some of these rules could limit freedom on the internet, that some of these rules could constrain the opportunities for consumers to have lower cost internet, that this throttling benefits cost.
00:17:01.540Now, I've been at times critical of the Republican position on this.
00:17:04.540I believe the internet needs to be a place where content is shared and accelerated and downloaded and used based on the desires of the consumer, not based on solely the provision by these large companies that engage in the infrastructure investment on the front end.
00:17:24.540So we'll continue to follow the evolution of net neutrality policy.
00:17:29.540It was something Ajit Pai wanted to tackle.
00:17:31.540He never really had the political will or the backing to do it.
00:17:35.540Now he's gone and we could see more Democrat thinking, more Democrat policy making through the FCC.
00:17:43.540I've called on the FCC to get more involved in the censorship issue, the election interference issue that has occurred through some of the digital social platforms.
00:17:54.540We'll see if that becomes at all part of the mantra, if there is a new chairman, and I guess there will be since Pai's leaving, and a new composition of the FCC.
00:18:10.540This week, the United States House of Representatives will take up the MORE Act.
00:18:15.540This is a sweeping piece of legislation dealing with marijuana reform and frankly, unfortunately, some other tangential issues.
00:18:25.540I covered the MORE Act extensively in episode 80 of the podcast.
00:18:30.540So if you want to check out the committee debate, the issues, the equities being balanced for the marijuana reform legislation that will likely pass the House of Representatives on Friday of this week, go check out episode 80.
00:18:45.540This podcast is written, produced, and directed by a team that includes myself and Luke Ball and Joel Valdez from our communications team.
00:18:53.540Make sure to subscribe, to like, to review on your podcast listening platform of choice, and join us tomorrow for more Hot Takes.