The Candice Malcolm Show - Fake news journalists need to be called out for their dishonesty

00:00:00.000 The theory that the coronavirus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan is gaining more credibility

00:00:11.720 each and every day. When the world first learned about the coronavirus, after weeks of cover-up

00:00:17.680 by the Chinese Communist government and their friends in the World Health Organization,

00:00:22.440 we were told the origin of this virus came from a wet market in Wuhan. We were told to ignore the

00:00:29.040 fact that China's only high-security infectious disease laboratory, a lab infamous for its

00:00:35.060 controversial research and the Chinese government's secrecy around it, the Wuhan Institute for

00:00:41.140 Virology Lab, is located a stone's throw from the wet market where we were told the coronavirus

00:00:47.580 originated. But this was simply a coincidence, we were told, and the mainstream media insisted

00:00:53.560 that we have full faith in the explanation given by the Chinese government. Dissenting thinkers who

00:01:00.260 raised questions about the links between this new coronavirus and China's lone biosafety level

00:01:06.400 four laboratory located in the same city, well, they were attacked and maligned, and this includes

00:01:11.580 myself. All the way back in January, I raised some concerns. I thought they were valid concerns, 0.84

00:01:16.280 asked questions just as journalists are supposed to do, questioning the link between the possibility

00:01:22.300 that these labs or China's biological warfare program was somehow linked to the deadly virus.

00:01:31.320 Now this is the angle that I'm a little bit more worried and concerned about, which is interesting

00:01:36.340 because nobody else is covering it. Nobody else is covering it. I noticed this story in the

00:01:40.560 Washington Times over the weekend. It says virus hit Wuhan, has two laboratories linked to Chinese

00:01:47.240 biological warfare program. So the deadly animal virus epidemic spreading globally may have originated

00:01:54.260 in a Wuhan laboratory linked to China's covert biological weapons program, according to an Israeli

00:01:59.280 biological warfare expert. Radio Free Asia this week rebroadcasted a local Wuhan television report

00:02:05.240 from 2015 showing China's most advanced virus research laboratory known as the Wuhan Institute for

00:02:11.580 virology, Radio Free Asia reported. The lab is the only declared site in China capable of working with

00:02:18.700 deadly viruses. So Danny Shohan, who is a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has studied

00:02:24.460 Chinese biological warfare, said the institute is linked to Beijing's covert biological weapons programs.

00:02:30.800 This is a quote from Shohan. Certain laboratories in the institute have probably engaged in terms of

00:02:35.680 research and development in Chinese biological weapons, at least collaterally, yet not as a principal

00:02:41.660 facility of the Chinese biological warfare alignment, he told the Washington Times. Work on biological

00:02:48.140 weapons is conducted as part of a dual civilian military research and is definitely covert, he said in an email.

00:02:54.220 Mr. Shohan holds a doctorate in medical microbiology from 1970 to 1991. He was a senior analyst with the

00:02:59.800 Israeli military intelligence and biological and chemical warfare in the Middle East and worldwide,

00:03:04.260 holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. So that is a little bit concerning. I mean, we don't know

00:03:10.060 anything and I'm not going to speculate, but I'm just saying that, you know, an expert who knows what

00:03:13.860 he's talking about is linking this. We don't really know exactly what the origins are. Nobody in the media

00:03:17.980 is talking about, but it is definitely worth knowing that China's covert biological weapons is centered in

00:03:24.460 the exact same city where this virus was originating. I'll just leave it at that. I'm not going to

00:03:29.960 speculate, but I think it's interesting. Worth noting, not sure why my colleagues in the mainstream

00:03:34.060 media are completely ignoring that fact. But as has become a sad sign of our times,

00:03:39.960 agenda-driven journalists quickly attempted to discredit this line of thinking and this line

00:03:45.800 of questioning. For example, freelance journalist Justin Ling wrote a column in Foreign Policy

00:03:51.860 magazine regurgitating Chinese propaganda and accusing me of spreading misinformation and

00:03:57.560 conspiracy theories simply for asking some questions and quoting an Israeli scientist who is also

00:04:03.180 raising similar concerns. Well, in the past few weeks, major news outlets around the world have

00:04:09.780 begun to revisit and re-question China's initial claims and raise new questions about the origin of

00:04:17.420 this coronavirus. On April 2nd, the Washington Post published a widely shared article by senior foreign

00:04:24.380 affairs columnist David Ignatius entitled, How did COVID-19 begin? Its original story is shaky. I'm going to read

00:04:32.780 from this article because it is really interesting and it really reveals a lot about the questions around the

00:04:38.560 origin of the coronavirus. So he says, scientists have identified the culprit as a bat coronavirus through

00:04:46.580 genetic sequencing. Bats weren't sold at the seafood market, although that market or others could have sold

00:04:52.760 animals that had contact with bats. The Lancelot noted in a January study that the first COVID-19 case

00:04:59.320 in Wuhan had no connection to the seafood market. There's a competing theory of an accidental lab release

00:05:06.960 of bat coronavirus that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood

00:05:13.800 market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that

00:05:20.680 facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses

00:05:27.560 from around China for study to prevent future illnesses. Did one of those samples leak or was hazardous waste

00:05:35.140 deposited in a place where it could have spread? Ignatius goes on, he quotes a Rutgers microbiologist and

00:05:42.560 biosafety expert who described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers collecting bat coronaviruses

00:05:51.840 with inadequate personal protective equipment and unsafe operational practices. So this story really,

00:06:00.120 really raised eyebrows. It made a lot of people sort of reconsider the initial Chinese claim. So following this

00:06:07.480 report, officials in the UK said that they too agreed with the possibility that the virus came out of a laboratory

00:06:13.740 in the area. According to a report in the Daily Mail, top British officials stated, quote,

00:06:20.160 there is a credible alternative view to the zoonic theory based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence

00:06:27.220 that there is a laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted. Well, this week saw several more groundbreaking reports

00:06:35.060 that give this alternative theory more credibility. First, the Washington Post released a report this week

00:06:41.780 revealing that the U.S. State Department cables warned of safety issues at that same Wuhan lab

00:06:48.120 studying bat coronaviruses all the way back in 2018. According to the report, U.S. embassy officials

00:06:55.080 visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings

00:07:01.420 back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses

00:07:08.320 from bats. So that was the first indication that we knew that there were problems at these labs and

00:07:15.520 that it went all the way to the top within the U.S. government. Okay, second, on Wednesday evening,

00:07:20.400 we had a bombshell of a news report from Fox News about the same Wuhan lab and the possibility

00:07:27.240 of a leak. So Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts reported that U.S. officials had a high

00:07:35.080 confidence that the coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab. He asked the question to President Donald Trump

00:07:42.660 during Trump's nightly briefing on the coronavirus, and this is what that sounded like.

00:07:47.300 John, go ahead. Mr. President, multiple sources are telling Fox News today that the United States

00:07:53.960 government now has high confidence that while the coronavirus is a naturally occurring virus,

00:08:00.380 it emanated from a virology lab in Wuhan, that because of lax safety protocols, an intern was

00:08:07.220 infected who later infected her boyfriend and then went to the wet market in Wuhan where it began to

00:08:13.220 spread. Does that correspond with what you have heard from? Well, I don't want to say that, John,

00:08:18.180 but I will tell you more and more. We're hearing the story and we'll see when you say multiple sources.

00:08:23.500 Now, there's a case where you can use the word sources. On Wednesday evening, Fox News also

00:08:28.760 reported that U.S. officials say that Chinese officials not only lied about the origin of the

00:08:35.480 virus coming from a wet market in Wuhan in order to deflect blame, but also that they destroyed 0.97

00:08:41.040 evidence from the lab to prevent a smoking gun. It may have been the costliest government cover-up

00:08:47.960 of all time, a U.S. official told Fox News. Look, as the Chinese communist officials ramp up their

00:08:55.180 propaganda efforts, working hand-in-hand with the corrupt and discredited World Health Organization,

00:09:01.380 it's more important than ever that Canadians know the truth. And that's why it's so important that

00:09:07.520 fake news journalists like Justin Ling at Foreign Policy be called out for their dishonesty.

00:09:13.220 Journalists are supposed to ask questions and search for the truth, not push Chinese propaganda

00:09:18.720 and not shame other journalists for asking what they think are the wrong questions. Justin Ling's

00:09:25.060 calm and foreign policy is fake news, and it should be taken down immediately. For True North,

00:09:31.500 I'm Candice Malcolm.

The Candice Malcolm Show - April 17, 2020

Fake news journalists need to be called out for their dishonesty

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