BREAKING: Former CDC Director Says COVID “Most Likely” Originated in China Lab

Breaking news today on Sekulow. The former CDC director tells CNN that COVID-19, he believes, likely originated in that Chinese lab in Wuhan. We'll talk about that and its implications today on Sekulow. Live from Washington DC, Jay Sekulow live. If I was to guess, this virus started transmitting somewhere in September, October in Wuhan.

September, October. That's my own view. It's the only opinion. I'm allowed to have opinions now. You know, I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped. Other people don't believe that. That's fine.

Science will eventually figure it out. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker. Phone lines are open for your questions right now.

Call 1-800-684-3110. That's not implying any intentionality. You know, it's my opinion, right? But I am a virologist. I have spent my life in virology. I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human. And at that moment in time, the virus that came to the human became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So when you hear from the CDC director, and to explain this, the former CDC director, for those of you who may say, okay, so who was he? I think the good reminder is he had the beard with no mustache, that CDC director. He was a CDC director under the Trump presidency during the origins of COVID. And now that he can speak freely, that he's no longer the CDC director, as he said, he doesn't buy what the World Health Organization, which of course is owned by China and with the Chinese influence there, he doesn't buy this idea that a bat, that all of that could stem from a single bat and a single person that could create a wide pandemic, that in his opinion, it came from the lab.

He doesn't say it was intentionally done. He said that it's very common, and he's a virologist, that it's very common that people who work on these viruses end up getting, somebody there ends up getting infected by it, and then they would be the ones spreading it. So at a minimum, he is now saying he does not agree with the CDC or the World Health Organization. And the CDC, and by the way, if you're watching on our social media platforms, we encourage you to share this with your friends.

Same thing on radio, tell your folks to listen. We got a lot to talk about here, and you should do that right now. Understand this, the original theory was this came from the wet market, so that it was a virus that was created by, if you remember, a bat. Now we know, or at least the indications are, despite what the World Health Organization is saying, is that this is something the Chinese government was creating. So ask yourself this question, why was the Chinese government creating a virus, and why isn't the world organizations, WHO and others, asking that question? We were funding the Wuhan Institute, too. There were hundreds of thousands of US dollars went to this institute, which isn't a ton, but the idea is that people were putting money into these studies, and we know that they are reckless. If he's right, and I trust that people who are specialists, that when they create these viruses and try to figure out how you would fight them, that it's common someone would get it, they should have known how serious it would be that if that person just walks out onto the street, well that's a quick spread. But the question is, what was the reason for creating the virus, Harry? I mean, if you're the Chinese government, which you're not their policy director, fortunately for us, what would be the policy to do that? It has to be, there cannot be a, maybe there is some medical reason, but it just sounds nefarious. It could be a viral weapon.

In other words, a bio weapon. And so I think the truth is slowly seeping out regarding China's culpability. And the truth is emerging despite the politically correct censorship by both politicians and the World Health Organization, which seemingly is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese government. All right, folks, we're taking your phone calls, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We come back, we'll start, we'll get deeper into this, take more of your calls. We'll talk something about the Biden press conference, though. Certainly not making a lot of news because there wasn't a lot of news made by Joe Biden.

If you could stomach through that hour long press conference, which felt like days, 1-800-684-3110. Support our matching challenge, aclj.org. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

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Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at aclj.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at aclj.org slash gift. So I think it's important for all of you to know, and welcome back to secular with it, CNN's put this special together with former people that were in the administration about COVID and looking back and it was, I don't think it was CNN's intention, it was Robert Redfield who was the former director of CDC. You remember him, a lot of those briefings and congressional testimony. And he basically told Sanjay Gupta, I'm going to tell you how I think this started.

So he didn't let him dictate the interview. He said, and he said he disagrees with the World Health Organization assessment that this was a bat that somebody ate because at a market and that person that's caused a global pandemic. And then instead that it originated in the lab and then it likely leaked out from the lab at best. So unintentionally, because when you're working with these kinds of viruses, as he said, as a specialist, it's likely that somebody working on it does get infected, may not know they're infected yet, and then hits the streets, takes a flight, that's how it spreads. But the CDC, which he was the head of in the last update, he was still director. So he was obviously getting a ton of pushback from even having this opinion, as he calls it, was saying on their website that they believe that what the COVID that was in the US was similar to the one that China initially posted. And they said suggesting a likely single recent emergence of the virus from an animal reservoir. So he is now saying, I'm free of the chains of the CDC, let me tell you what I think. One of the things that's interesting here, Andy, I'm going to go to Andy on this and I want to get a Washington reaction to it too. But one of the things that's interesting to me is that the narrative that the left has been putting out there had been that this virus was started in the wet market in China, because then it doesn't look like there's nefarious actors behind it.

There's what we would call in the law, a mens rea, an attempt to do something. Now you've got at least the CDC director saying, hey, look, I think this thing originated inside the lab. Someone got it and it spread. I'm not saying it was intentional or not, but that's very different from that was a haphazard situation in a wet market in China.

Well, freed from the bonds of government control that he had as director of the CDC and unable to speak, he said, I'm going to express my opinion. I'm a virologist who has worked all my life in viruses and let me tell you what I think. I think this originated in a lab and it was a lab born airborne pathogen and he was, he fell short of saying it was intentional. I'm going to say that I think it was intentional. In my opinion, it was an intentional creation of a virus that was intended to spread and to do harm to the world, which there is no doubt that it did. And this idea of a wet market and bats and communication from bats to humans, I think is nonsense. This was part of a Chinese scheme that was put in to do many things.

And one of them was to create havoc in the world and it did. Okay. So let me ask you this then, is there a sense within Congress, because I would think this would be bipartisan to get to the, to do an oversight committee, to find out exactly what happened here? Well, that's a great question, Jay.

I'm not sure there is a bipartisan consensus on that. I mean, look, if you, if you take a step back, it's really remarkable that this is even considered a controversial theory. I mean, when an airborne virus originates next door to a lab that studies that very thing, of course, the very first thing that you would investigate and rule out is that originated in that lab, it's sort of Occam's razor.

That's the most likely scenario. And yet Jay, over the last, over the last year or year and a half, the left has mocked this. They have derided the idea that it could have originated in this lab. And so I go back to the question that you asked a minute ago, why would they do that? Jay, I think it's because of the narrative of things like funding for the world health organization. I mean, if it originated in this lab and yet they are insistent on rejoining the world health organization and re-instituting US funding, well, that would undermine that narrative. So I really think they're dug in against this narrative, even though it's the most likely explanation. You know, look, they may have been developing this in the lab, Harry, to work on it so that they could develop it and then find a cure to it. I mean, that could be what they were doing. The question is this though, the narrative that has been out there has been this, it started in a wet market, so it was kind of a natural occurrence, if you will. This other looks, here's one intent, I understand people saying it's not intent to commit a crime per se or in violation of international law, but one intent was they were obviously growing the virus. Absolutely.

I think that is true. And what is tragic, of course, is that millions of Americans have been adversely and seriously affected by this virus. Think about the United States, how many people lost their jobs, lost their houses, are now suffering from mental illness.

Why? Because China has engaged, in my judgment, in a coverup. I think if we examine, for instance, satellite photography of Wuhan as far back as October and November of last year, you can see that the hospitals, the parking lots in Wuhan, were overwhelmed.

That gives rise to what? Inferential information suggesting that the virus had already struck in Wuhan. And third, I think we can argue, I think effectively, that there was a dead giveaway with respect to this particular virus, with respect to how the Chinese government reacted.

They reacted by engaging, arguably, in a coverup. So you put all of that together, and I think Dr. Redfill's analysis sounds very sound to me in terms of an explanation, and I think the American people should justifiably be outraged with the lack of transparency. So not much happening on the congressional end, but there's supposedly a team of international and Chinese scientists that are going to issue its report on a joint search for the origins of the coronavirus, and they're working with multiple theories. There's a clear front-runner in the theory, according to experts.

So the report's going to be published in months. The question, I think, becomes, whatever the theories, we now have the former director of the CDC saying, we think this was an intentionally created virus. Not that they intentionally leaked it, but that was certainly a risk.

If they intentionally created it, that was the risk they created. I think, listen back on a broadcast back in February with Mike Pompeo, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State. Take a listen to how he sees it, this virus emanating from China, 33. So there's three things we know for sure about this virus with respect to China. First, that's where it began. It is in fact the Wuhan virus.

This is indisputable. In spite of enormous propaganda where the Chinese have tried to foist it on America saying this came from frozen foods or from America's laboratories. This is just nonsense and propaganda. Second thing we know, immediately the Chinese Communist Party knew an awful lot and refused to share that information with the world.

Right? Your responsibility as a global player says if you've got a problem, you make sure and keep everyone safe. They didn't. They closed down travel inside of China, but allowed people to travel to Milan and all across the world spreading this virus. And they knew better. They knew that human to human transmission was taking place. Finally, we know they operated this lab. And we know that they were engaged in research on these kinds of viruses. And we know that they've had trouble securing viruses in their labs before in 2003. We know they leaked with respect to SARS.

So they are not world class when it comes to securing viruses in their laboratories. I want to say something to our ACLJ members because you just heard from our colleague Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State and former CIA Director. We have the expertise to discuss this issue, which is complex and has global ramifications because of your support for the ACLJ.

I just want to say that we normally save that till the end. But as we played Mike Pompeo's sound there, I'm thinking to myself, your support of the ACLJ allowed us to retain Mike Pompeo as a senior counsel with the ACLJ for global affairs. And I think that is something we want to thank you for because you're hearing it now from the former Secretary of State and former CIA Director. Now there's something else going on here, Jordan, and that is the politics of all of this because this panel that's been put together has four theories.

One of the theories is it was from a bat through an intermediate animal, in other words, a bat to an animal to a human, straight from a bat, from a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. And they say that and it looks like that's going to be the least likely, although now the former CDC Director is saying, no, that's the most likely. So this is a lot of politics going on here too, including global politics. People need to be aware of that. Yeah, global politics, especially pressuring the United States to say, you know, instead of saying where was all the info that China destroyed, why were all the people who came out who were Chinese and spoke about this discredited so quickly by the Chinese government, by even the US media. And again, I think it ties into another issue we're talking about today, which is that so many people in the United States are on the payroll of China. They benefit economically from China that they're willing to feed out their propaganda, take out those who oppose the propaganda, you know, say they're crazy and that they don't have any authority.

People disappear all the time there and they accept that. But we have seen now in Tennessee, the governor, finally these Confucius Institutes, which pay millions of dollars to US professors, state universities where they, Tennessee has control of, has banned them, throw them off campus. We're going to talk about them when we come back from the break.

And I think that that's again, that's how you get all these expert professors and scientists who are also professors to go along with what the World Health Organization wants, which is the Chinese story that it was an accident in a bat. We're going to stay live for our Facebook audience and for our YouTube audience or wherever else you're watching, or ACLJ.org, wherever you are watching this on social media. Obviously radio stations will take a break. We'll fill you all in on what we're talking about. We've got some news we want to break during this break. So share this with your friends right now, if you're watching on any of our multiple social media platforms and also support the work of the ACLJ. You do that at ACLJ.org, but this would be a great time to share things with your friends. I've got to, there's some legal issues here that are very significant.

ACLJ.org for that matching challenge. We're going to be back in a moment, but again, on our social media platforms, we're staying alive. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected.

Is there any hope for that culture to survive? And that's exactly what you were saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. So it's interesting to me to see this former CDC director, and I think the caller is interested too, and Julie in South Carolina on Line 1 will take first call today because now that he's no longer constrained, he's giving a very different opinion than he would have to do under oath, because opinion, it's not something that he can be held to.

It's just what he believes based on what he's seen so far, but he certainly knows a lot more about it and saw a lot more about than most of us. Julie, welcome to Secular. You're on the air. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

Thank you. You know, I really just wanted to say I totally agree about the lab accident, and I know there are labs that make viruses for, you know, supposedly legitimate purposes, so I just wanted to take a grain of salt about it being nefarious that they made the virus to hold people. I think everything they did after accidentally making the virus was very harmful to all of us, but I'm not sure they actually were trying to make a deadly virus. Well, what were they trying? I mean, you may be right. I don't know this, but it seems to me that they, because sometimes you try to create viruses so you know if they come, you can destroy them, so that may have been what they're doing. But the fact of the matter is, whatever they did, we said this earlier, I'm going to go to Than and Andy.

We'll go first to Than. Somebody on our government, now maybe they are, should be looking at this. No question about it, and they were looking at it, Jay. The Senate Homeland Security Committee under Ron Johnson and the last Senate were doing an investigation into the origins of it.

I have no indication that that investigation has continued. It should. Jay, I would say this to the caller. I mean, even if you stipulate everything, say that it was for a good purpose and that it was accidentally released, the fact that the Chinese government instituted a domestic travel ban but not an international travel ban, even if everything they did up to that point, Jay, was on the up and up, which I think is a big stipulation, but even if you grant that, that move alone, not stopping international travel while stopping domestic travel, Jay, they would have to be held to account for that. You would think so.

And, Andy, we talked about this during the break, and I want to share with our audience. I know we're going to get Jordan to this Confucius Center issue, too. But legally, if you look at intent issues or negligence, both of those are actionable globally under global legal system institutions. And they are under international law, whether it's intentional or whether it's negligent. However, it may have originated what the intent was, whether it was a nefarious intent, which I happen to believe it was, whether it was negligence, whether it was just a mistake or an accident. All those are adjudicatable in a tribunal in the international sphere.

The question is whether the Chinese would submit to the jurisdiction under one of these courts or these international tribunals. I doubt it very seriously. But, Harry, as we said this during the break also, and I want our audience to hear this radio, and that is the economic consequences of this for the global economic impact on this was gigantic. Absolutely. So if you look at the unemployment rate, just before the virus hit, the United States had record employment. African American, Asian, Latin American unemployment levels were at record lows. The economy was going full out. And after the virus, we had shutdowns, some of which were arbitrary, some of which perhaps were unnecessary. But in any case, that happened largely due to a pandemic that China is at fault with respect to. They're at fault in several ways.

First, allowing the virus to likely escape. And secondly, because they failed to warn. There is a theory in law, particularly tort law, called failure to warn. And they had an affirmative obligation, I would argue, they should have warned the entire globe about the effects of this virus.

Jordan, you have an LLM in international human rights, international law. I mean, there are serious... I don't think our government's going to do a thing about it. I think what Nancy said is right. They're just not going to do what Andy said is right. They're not going to do it. You don't think they're going to do it. But there are serious international law implications in this.

Yeah, whether you did this intentionally or not. If you created it intentionally in the lab, and you couldn't secure it, and you've already been found SARS, same kind of thing, where you could not secure these viruses, so you have no business doing this, and you've done it again, there can be serious consequences if the world wants there to be, but they don't. So instead, they're going to buy a scenario which doesn't make sense to the CDC director. Let him explain to you, I just want him to hear the transmission process here, because this idea that we're being sold, that at one bat, one person spread it into the entire world, and it wasn't that... But he talks about how if you're in the lab, you're creating this, you actually try to make them worse. You want the virus to be bigger so that you can attack it different ways.

Take a listen by 32. Normally when a pathogen goes from a zoonotic to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient in human-to-human transmission. I just don't think this makes biological sense. So in the lab, do you think that that process of becoming more efficient was happening? Is that what you were suggesting? Yeah, let's just say I have coronavirus that I'm working on. Most of us in the lab, we're trying to grow a virus. We try to help make it grow better and better and better and better and better and better so we can do experiments and figure out about it.

That's the way I put it together. So I mean, you think about that so that it makes more sense that a virus that could spread so rapidly around the world would not be one that just randomly came from an animal, but there would be one created a lab to be as strong as possible, because the good intention would be that you can figure out how to defeat it, like we've talked about. But whether or not the Chinese have any business doing this out of this lab, which has gotten US funding by the way, after that they have not been able to secure these viruses, that's the whole idea. We're doing all this research inside the US too, but they are secured. And we also have a much more transparent government, unless it involves China. And then suddenly we start buying foolish sounding stories. I don't want to give our FOIA team more work to do, but I did think about this then, and that is, I see things I can see in the matters taking notes.

I did think about this. Wouldn't it be good to know what communications went on between the CDC, HHS, State Department, and these various governments as to what is the origin of this? Don't you think that, I think the American people have a right to know, because we're in kind of a trade war with, and I don't want to call it a cold war, but it's a very difficult situation with China right now.

We're going to get into these Confucians Institute when we get back, because you're talking about buying influence, but go ahead. Well, yeah, you'd be especially interested in what maybe Mr. Redfield's communications were, right? If he had these concerns while he was in this post, and if the bureaucrats were actually overruling him, that'd be another indication of the power of the deep state. The FOIA team is very busy, Jay, but I do think we should probably look at that. Look, here's the thing I'm concerned about though, Jay. If this is the posture that we have, if we're taking this approach on this issue, because we're afraid it's going to upset President Biden's China policy, what if that posture leaks over into how we're addressing their economic threat or their intellectual property threat? Jay, the ramifications just go way, way, way beyond our response to COVID. But I could tell you, our team put together a briefing paper for us this morning, and look, this international team that's doing this investigation, it's pretty clear what they're going to do.

So based on what we've heard so far, I expect the report will likely lend some credence to a link between wildlife farming and COVID-19, but without full evidence about exactly how the move from animals into humans might have occurred. This is the important part. Right.

If that was happening, I think you'd want to know the answer to that. Right. But they don't have an answer for that because as we've heard from Redfield, it doesn't make sense that it could happen that rapidly from a human that would take much longer for the virus to develop. And to be that strong, it seems more like a lab-created virus because of the strength that it hit the world in.

And we're still dealing with mutations as we speak today. Take your phone calls too. Second half hour coming up on Secula, 1-800-684-3110. If you want to talk to us on air, that's 1-800-684-3110. Don't forget our matching challenge, ACLJ.org.

At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow Live.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So now we have—and if there was anything really to talk about from Joe Biden's press conference, I think the only thing to talk about is that he'd be willing to do away now with the filibuster. And so he's no longer really holding back on that if he'd get the votes for it. And that remains to be a question, though I will say that Joe Manchin's wife just got an appointment from Joe Biden's administration to a $160,000 a year job, which again is—she's someone who has constantly gotten these appointments, by the way.

She was the head of the Board of Education in West Virginia, and so it's always kind of been a grifting-like situation. But again, when you put their wives in the administration, or husbands or whatever, certainly you're going to have a little more influence. Maybe think twice, especially when it's someone who tries to play that they're not a moderate, that they are not totally in line with the Democrat Party.

It would be different, I think, if he was just a far-left liberal and his wife got this position, so what? But he is someone who, again, is right. So that's the news there. And also, the misleading numbers on the border, that only 13 percent of the people across stay, have actually been removed. And he said the majority are being removed.

I think he's probably coming up with some number based on how many people are stopped before they get in and things like that. But not a lot of news made there, other than that he hopes to run again for, you know, President in 2024. And by the way, talked about the former President more than I've ever seen any current President do in my lifetime, certainly. He loves to talk about Trump.

He's got the definitely TDS with the Trump derangement syndrome. Still, to this day, like haunts him, which is interesting because, you know, he's the one in the White House right now. But I think what is important to focus on with this China issue is that we now have a former CDC director who's not like someone in line with Trump. And those are people appointed for 10-year time. He did leave after the Biden administration put their own person in.

That's fine. They can do that. They now that he's free to talk, he is certainly telling the world a very different view of how he believes the virus spread. And now we've played it for everybody, but just so you understand, he said he believes it was out of the lab and it was created to be stronger out of the lab. And it was likely someone in the lab took it out intentionally or unintentionally, carried it out to the world because that's the only way it would be strong enough.

It couldn't be that strong coming from an animal to a person. But the reason for that is that a person, whether it was intentionally or unintentionally, whether the lab created the COVID virus to be able to work on the COVID virus or whether, as Harry said, could, and this is again just speculation, was it going to be a biological weapon? Here's the one thing that's really clear. They were negligent, malfeasance, negligence, gross negligence in the way in which they did not disclose to the world what was happening. And that is where an illegal issue arises, issue joins.

That's right. Well, it's like the Chernobyl situation, Jay. The failure to disclose by the communists about the meltdown of the planet Chernobyl. These are the ways that the communists operate. And I'm not talking, don't make me sound like this is 1952 and I'm seeing the communist menace, but the Chinese Communist Party, which is in control of this vast nation with vast resources, has got an agenda. And the agenda is not to share with the world what is going on that is nefarious in my estimation within their labs and their production capabilities. So former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, senior counsel for the ACLJ or Global Affairs was on this very broadcast and has been working with our team on this.

And here's what he said. Now there's a handful more pieces of evidence to wish that the Chinese Communist Party was capable of sharing this information in the world, but you all know this, right? Just like with Chernobyl, just like with communist regimes all along, they closed down, they disappear people who have the information that could help the world solve this serious problem. We had scientists coming out of China saying they're lying to you and then those people were discredited by our own media, right? And we bought into the propaganda.

And I think the reason is because so many people are living, their salaries are being inflated by having relationships with China. And when you think about the Biden family, you can talk about that going all the way to professors at universities across the country who are educating your kids. So we'll talk about that when we come back on Secular 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air. Be a part of our matching challenge at ACLJ.org.

It goes through the entire month of March. Donate today, double your impact, ACLJ.org. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith. I'm covering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress. The ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Sekulow. We're taking your phone calls to at 1-800-684-3110. Bill's been holding on from Oklahoma on line three. Hey Bill, welcome to Sekulow. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. Thanks, Bill.

Thanks for calling. I just wanted to suggest, it's been evident repeatedly out of the mouth of the Chinese government that their intention is world domination on every platform. I do not see any way that this virus is not a portion of that platform of theirs, whether or not they release it intentionally. I have a deep-seated belief that it came out. Yeah, so I mean I agree with you.

I can't prove it was intentional or unintentional. I think there's evidence showing that they did not properly handle the transparency afterwards, which would have saved lives and not ruined so many global economies, so I think that's all true. But you have to understand something, and Jordan alluded to this, we'll get into it right now. The Chinese government is on, you said global domination, Mike Pompeo has said this too, they are on a full boat. Joe Biden said yesterday, Joe Biden said as Xi Jinping told him on the phone, they want to be the world leader, they want to be the superpower of the world.

So they make no mistake about this. So talk about what's happening with the Confucius Centers. So these Confucius Centers are at universities all over the country, and what they were beat, they are funded by the Chinese government, and then they are set up as like nonprofits.

They then provide grants to professors, students to do research. So who do you get loyal to? Well, who's feeding your research program? Who's feeding your grant? The Chinese government. So who are you not going to come out and say, well, they're committing genocide? The Chinese government. Who are you going to talk about if you're a scientist and you're taking money from them, you're not going to blame them for the virus, so you're going to blame a bat. And the Trump administration had a proposal going into place that would have required universities to start disclosing their foreign monetary ties.

Where are you taking foreign money from? Biden scrapped that immediately. The Biden administration rolled back all that transparency that was put in place by the Trump administration. So Tennessee and other states are following this, but Tennessee actually got legislation through because of the governor, Bill Lee, who proposed legislation to the state legislators. They put it through, and it kicks these Confucius Institutes off of all of the campuses they can control. They can't control the private universities, but they can control all the major state universities, and they have kicked the Confucius Institutes off campus in Tennessee. Other states are doing this same thing. They're in the same process. And Harry, I think this is huge because this is where you get the experts and specialists who weigh in on everything from, is it genocide, to could it have originated actually in a bat?

Absolutely. And you generate apologists for the Chinese regime, and these apologists are bought and paid for, if you will, by China, either directly or indirectly. They may call it a grant, but some might also call it a bribe. And one of the things to keep in mind here is that the Biden administration, which lacks transparency with respect to the nation's ongoing border crisis, also does not favor transparency with respect to China and China's ability to influence the United States. And so the Biden family has, to some extent, acted as grifters with respect to the Chinese government. And it's no surprise that the Biden administration is basically saying to the Chinese government, come in, give grants to American universities, gain greater influence. And I think, as you rightly point out, Jordan, what is the objective of China? Domination and control. And we need a strong action to oppose it.

So talking about strong action, here's what I don't understand, Thanh. I mean, I realize that the Republicans don't control either chamber, so it's difficult. But you would think that government, our government, would want to get to the bottom of this and would like to find out what's happening. Now, this report that's gonna come out from these science committee, you already know where this is going.

And you'll find out later their funding was from the Confucius Institute, but that's hyperbole, folks. But I'm just saying, the fact is we don't know where this is going from this group, and it doesn't look like it's gonna be real compared to at least what the CDC director is saying. So what does Congress do here?

What can the American people do? We're gonna find out what kind of communication we're going on. I mean, I know I'm overloading our FOIA team.

We have to increase that team because we're coming up with new ones every day here. But there doesn't appear to be congressional action on this is what I'm saying. Well, there's a moral and a fiduciary obligation for there to be congressional action here, Jay. But I would say the reason that you might not get that is if you have infiltration into Congress.

And we know that that has happened, Jay. I mean, we've been over the Eric Swalwell, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff story time and time again, but the disincentive to crack down on foreign influence in our government would be ratcheted up if you are one of the people that is compromised. And so you're looking to the very people who have had ties with China or have family members on the payroll to come up with that action.

Jay, I just don't think that is gonna get the job done. I think it's gonna be incumbent on people like us and people like news media who are willing to look into it to actually bring this into the light of day. I just don't see the initiative starting with Congress because they're already so compromised.

There are 545,000 Americans that have died from this disease, this virus that has ruined businesses all over the country, in fact, all over the globe. And then you have this international group that's put together and people that are concerned that it's not gonna be a real report also say, I'm reading this, planning a real time research would be the next thing, but noted there's no guarantee future trips will find all the answers. But Andy, we know who has the answers, the Chinese government. And we're not gonna inquire into them and we're not gonna press them.

Whether you say it or not or whether you like it or not, this administration is not going to do what the Trump administration was doing. It is soft on China. It has ties with the Chinese in the family connections. I know they do. There's no doubt about it. Look at the Swalwell, talking about what Tom was taking. Let's not forget Swalwell. We've forgotten Swalwell completely. It's over with. He had a Chinese operative in his office, didn't he, Jay?

Raising money. While he's on the Intelligence Committee. And he's still on the Intelligence Committee? Barbara Fintze's driver was a Chinese operative also, remember?

Yeah, right. Barbara Fintze is all out of California, Northern California politicians, the Bay Area. Rick Grenell was talking about yesterday how much influence and Pelosi also comes out of the Bay Area. So all the Northern California influence from China is direct. And they are buying their way in, but then also infiltrating with their actors.

And they're making no mistake about what they wanna be. They wanna be what the United States is. And the question is, are we gonna stand up to it? And I don't think there was a question about that under the four years under the Trump administration. But now, I mean, I can't imagine after that press conference yesterday, Joe Biden said he had a two-hour phone call. Now, there was translation involved, I'm sure, with the Chinese President. Do you think that the Chinese President could understand anything that Joe Biden was trying to get across to him? If it was really just Joe Biden talking, that must have been so garbled by the time it was translated that what I think he was saying was what Joe Biden said.

He understands that China needs these autocrats and these leaders and they need basically their bandwidth to operate the way they do. Meanwhile, the entire globe should still be outraged. I mean, I read reports yesterday, you've all seen them, that there are still portions in the globe of sophisticated countries, Harry, with sophisticated economies that are having to reshot down.

I mean, Paris, France. Germany, I mean, none of the pushback has been unreal, but the Germans are talking about it. The UK is saying, maybe May 21st, we can start opening again. Absolutely. And so what we have done is we've asked people in the Western world to put their lives on hold.

Why? Because of a lack of transparency from the Chinese government. And at the end of the day, the Chinese government, I think, benefits from this pandemic because it enhances and expands their control of the world's economy. So at the end of the day, this pandemic actually advances China's interest.

And then they continue to advance their interests through operatives that are connected to so-called Confucius Institutes, which are really cover for grants and some might say bribes to American academics who continue and insist upon apologizing for China's misbehavior relentlessly. And this needs to stop immediately. Folks, as we go to the next table, we're going to take your phone calls, 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Let me encourage you right now, if you have a moment and you're financially able right now and you're in a position to do so, this is a great time to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice at ACLJ.org. You can double the impact of your donation. We have a matching challenge. What that means, a group of donors that have come together and said that we will match every donation that comes through in the month of March. What does that take?

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You donate online at ACLJ.org. Wes Smith has got a new piece up too on China. The new China syndrome, this is at ACLJ.org.

Why the People's Republic of China should worry everyone. We'll discuss that too in this final segment of the broadcast coming up. But we want to take your phone calls, 1-800-684-3110.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your phone calls 1-800-684-3110 and the situation in China.

Wes Smith is joining us now. Wes, you've got a new piece up at ACLJ.org, The New China Syndrome, Why the People's Republic of China Should Worry. Everyone, tell people about what they'll learn from this.

And again, it's available at ACLJ.org. Yeah, well, we'll learn a lot about what you've already been talking about, about the World Health Organization and the origins of the virus, which is a part of the peace. But basically, I deal with the real threat to world order and world peace, that is the People's Republic of China, the military buildup in international waters, threatening Taiwan, human rights abuses on the mainland in China, oppression in Hong Kong, intellectual threat and internet fraud, unfair trading practices, where they use cheap labor and often forced labor to flood the market with inexpensive Chinese products, and of course, the whole COVID-19 thing. And concerning the World Health Organization, as you've been discussing, their credibility is in shambles.

And there are two large reasons for that, there are more than two. But one of them is the lone American who is on that investigative board for the World Health Organization is a guy named Peter Daszak. He is the President of the EcoHealth Alliance.

From that alliance, his organization has received millions of dollars from the virology lab in Wuhan, China. All right, so let's go back and restate this, because this is why you continue to listen to this broadcast through every segment. I want Wes to restate that. So this is our representative on this international committee. Right, and this committee in their preliminary report says, oh, it did not come from Wuhan, China, from the laboratory.

And he concurs with that, but Peter Daszak is his name. He's the President of the EcoHealth Alliance. His organization, he's the President, has received millions of dollars from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And then of course, you also have the fact that Director Tedros Gabrias, who is the head of the World Health Organization, was nominated for that position by the People's Republic of China.

As this is all going on, listen, it gets worse. China still to this day refuses to let international medical teams have access to their own documentation over the virus. They have to this day refused to let this board that is there with these gentlemen have access to the two labs in Wuhan. When Chinese doctors tried to speak out about it last year, they were silenced. One of them was in prison who later died. And here in the last few months, there were 18 international journalists in China to investigate the origins of the virus.

China expelled every one of them. Okay. So you look at the, first of all, Wes has got a great article up.

We'll get this out on all of our social media platforms too. And you need to read it. It's called the New China Syndrome, Why the People's Republic of China Should Worry Everyone. But the violations of international law here are so clear. And then as Wes just shared, the reality that this whole board, they came to this investigatory board is nonsense.

Yes, it is. And the idea- Can you imagine if that was your jury? Yeah, I would have a great jury. I wish I was- Your defendant is also funding your jury.

And all my witnesses are being paid by the defense and the judge is owned by the defense. I mean, it's set up. I mean, Wes's article, which I've read, and this was absolutely excellent, Chinese expelled also 18 foreign journalists and put limits on research into the outbreak and still prevents their scientists from speaking to reporters. This is just from Wes's article that I've just read.

The Chinese are not, will not, and have never been transparent. They are not going to allow inquiries into the origins of this virus. They put on the board, this guy, Gibrasis, which Wes points out as an Ethiopian, who is not a medical doctor. He is the head of the World Health Organization. And as Wes has pointed out, has a long standing relationship with whom? Senior leaders of the Chinese government.

And the World Health Organization delayed revealing the initial outbreak of the virus last year at whose request? China's request. What are we doing here, Jay? Well, you know what we're doing?

Nothing. We're letting them do this. So, if you don't think there's influence of the Chinese government in this stuff, wake up, folks. Now, what we're going to do is something. Because then you're telling me that basically Congress is a no-go on this. This is not going to happen. I think Congress is a no-go.

I might add something though, Jay. I think we are doing something. I think the Biden administration is choosing to rejoin the World Health Organization, which is the entity who is advancing falsehoods because the people that initiated those falsehoods are on their payroll. Jay, I think our role is finding out why they're doing that and who, by the way, is still there in the administration advancing that theory.

Jordan, politically, and then I got another question for Wes. Politically, you would think this would be a big issue. Yeah, I think that what's happened though is that, while it's a big issue, and our audience is listening in on this, when you get to business leaders and you get to not just politicians, business leaders, even medium-sized businesses I'm talking about, they might get apprehensive when you say, we're going to have to cut off your business with China then. Because that's where they see the criticism leading to is, right? Ultimately, to slay the dragon, if you will, you have to cut off its sources of income.

And its sources of income are directly flowing from basically all the goods in the United States. That scares big business, medium business, small business, manufacturers, people who import parts from the manufacturing. And so suddenly you get these stories that pop up, but there's not a lot of follow-up and there's not a lot of there there. And I think it's because people get nervous when you say we need to cut. It's not like cutting off Iran.

Yeah, exactly. So Wes, based on your research and your analysis, what is our risk here? Great risk. And as Jordan has indicated, it appears that our business leaders and our political leaders are not willing to confront the risk. It has risks economically, national security, and as I said earlier, just the world order. And we are not willing to take a stand.

Y'all mentioned the Confucius Institute. President Biden could take a stand on that. The Senate passed that bill by, what do you call it, reconciliation?

Well, not reconciliation, but unanimous approval. And Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring it up on the House floor. They do not want to take a stand against China because a lot of it is about the bottom line.

So that is because we just need to know this. So is the Chinese government almost the untouchable here? Well, sure. I mean, Jay, when you can get a spy into the office of a sitting Congressman, I don't think that's an outlandish statement to make. I mean, the very people that you're looking to in Congress to provide a strong response are themselves compromised. So until you expose enough of them and you have a majority that can actually do something about their own members, I don't think it's outlandish to say that you can't trust them to respond. Look, China is trying to become the world superpower, the current world superpower. The United States, Jay, they're the only ones that can stop that, but we have to hold ourselves accountable first. And I don't see that happening inside the House of Representatives.

How do you do that when you got, I mean, really quick, Andy, and then Jordan, I want you to close it out, but really quick. How do you do that when your jury witnesses are all paid for by the Chinese government? Well, the answer is they don't. Right. I mean, you know, we have to find out. Yeah, we got to find out what the ties are. And we're going to do that.

And that's what the ACLJ does. We're going to find out what's going on here. It's going to take time. It's going to take effort. It's going to take legal work.

We'll find out what's going on here. Support the work of the ACLJ. Our matching challenge continues throughout the entire month of March. We still have time to double the impact of your financial support for the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.

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Check out Wes's new piece on China. That's all up at ACLJ.org. We will talk to you next week. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.