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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm John Bickley.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I'm Georgia Howe.
--:-- John Bickley: Today, we're talking about the origins of COVID-19 and new reports that suggest government officials knew the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab back in 2020.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. Joining us now is journalist and author Michael Schellenberger. Michael, thanks for being on the show.
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: So, let's start with what we just found out from the UK related to the origins of the coronavirus. What did we just learn, and how does this change the way we think about how the UK in particular handled this situation?
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: What just got released was a memo sent from the former head of MI6, which is the UK's version of the CIA. And it was sent with a very well-known and respected professor from London School of Economics in early 2020 that essentially debunked this nature article called Proximal Origin, which claimed to have debunked that the virus came from a lab.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, what's the significance of this memo?
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: The memo says that the Chinese government is engaged in an information and influence operation to deflect responsibility. The memo says beyond a reasonable doubt the Wuhan Institute of Virology retro a bat virus in January 2020. We surmise that this was done to align with COVID-19 to sustain the natural causation narrative.
--:-- John Bickley: That's a pretty explosive claim. What are the implications of this conspiracy?
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: The implications of this conspiracy are pretty significant because it would suggest that you now have the U.S., U.K., Chinese, and German governments who all knew that the virus escaped from the lab, arguably in January, as early as January.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And what about the media's role in all of this? We've seen some big outlets like Nature and the New York Times pushing the narrative that the virus came from a wet market.
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: Yeah, oh, 100%. Nature's been behaving badly in a number of areas, basically showing that they have a political agenda that they put before science. So, but I mean, the entire scientific establishment is implicated by this.
--:-- John Bickley: And what about Anthony Fauci? He's been a key figure in the response to the pandemic. What do you make of his role in all of this?
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: You know, the most important figure in it all is Anthony Fauci. You know, there's a video of him in 2020 saying, when I heard that this coronavirus had come from Wuhan, the first thing I thought was wet market. Well, I just, I mean, that's like absurd. He the one that basically skirted the U ban on coronavirus gain research moved it to China and moved it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's a pretty damning statement. What about the media's response to all of this? We've seen some outlets like the New York Times trying to walk back their previous reporting.
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: Well, I think people are correctly angry because the person that wrote it is somebody who essentially got the CDC to reverse its position on masks. Now we don't think that mask mandates had any effect. And of course, we think that they actually had a pretty significant negative effect, particularly on children.
--:-- John Bickley: And what about the pardons that President Biden gave to Anthony Fauci and others? Trump has said that those pardons are invalid because they were signed with an auto pen.
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: I don't know that I'm comfortable with this idea that you would revoke pardons. I just think that that opens up a whole Pandora's box that I don't think we want to do.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But what about accountability? Don't people deserve to know the truth about what happened during the pandemic?
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: Yeah, I mean, I think the priority should be on getting the truth out, not on prosecuting or incarcerating people that lied. Well, we've seen so far this administration seems like it's pretty committed to transparency. Let's hope that holds up and we get some more transparency on this issue.
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--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for joining us, Michael.
--:-- Michael Schellenberger: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Michael Schellenberger, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.