May 31, 2021 • 19 mins
President Biden continues to promote his infrastructure plan across the country, but behind the scenes negotiations continue with not much progress. Senate Republicans offered a counter proposal that was just under $1 trillion with money for more traditional projects and paid for in part by using Covid relief funds. There is also still debate on the exact definition of infrastructure. Ginger Gibson, deputy Washington digital editor at NBC News, joins us for infrastructure talks, immigration, and Biden calling for a Covid probe.
Next, the coronavirus lab leak theory got extra attention last week as we found out that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick in November of 2019 and sought treatment at a hospital. Their symptoms were consistent with Covid and common seasonal illnesses. Also being talk about was an abandoned Chinese mine where people got sick after clearing bat guano. Scientists from the Wuhan institute took samples and found several new coronaviruses in 2012. Ken Dilanian national security correspondent at NBC News, joins us for why calls to investigate the coronavirus origins have intensified.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Monday, mate. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. President Biden continues to promote
his infrastructure plan across the country, but behind the scenes,
negotiations continue with not much progress. Senate Republicans offered a
counter proposal that was just under one trillion dollars, with
(00:23):
money for more traditional projects and being paid for in
part by using COVID relief funds. There's also still debate
on the exact definition of infrastructure. Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington
Digital editor at NBC News, joins US for infrastructure talks, immigration,
and Biden, calling for a COVID probe next the coronavirus
(00:44):
lab league there. He got extra tention last week as
we found out that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute
of Virology got sick in November, and they sought medical
treatment at a hospital. Their symptoms were consistent with COVID
and common seasonal illness. Also being talked about was an
abandoned Chinese mind where people got sick. After clearing that guana,
(01:06):
scientists from the Wuhan Institute took samples and found several
new coronaviruses in Handlinian, national security correspondent at NBC News,
joins us for why calls to investigate the coronavirus origins
have intensified. It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:27):
We have stayed within the boundaries of our original plan.
I think that's what the American people think of when
they think of of infrastructure, and that's certainly what we
do to Joining us now is Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington
Digital editor at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Ginger,
thanks for having me. We've seen President Biden hitting the
road across the country touting out his infrastructure plan. He's
(01:50):
really trying to sell it. Behind the scenes, negotiations have
been going on between Senate Republicans and Democrats. It hasn't
really seemed to be going much any where. The original
proposal was somewhere in the two point to five trillion
dollar range. The White House came back with something paired
down to about one point seven trillion, and it still
(02:11):
wasn't working out. So Republicans countered, again, they have something
that's just under one trillion dollars, really focused on kind
of that traditional meaning of infrastructure So Ginger, tell us
a little bit about what we're seeing in that counter
proposal from Senate Republicans. Yeah, you know, it is at
times look like negotiations on an infrastructure package. We're totally dead,
(02:31):
but they're not quite dead. As you said, on Thursday,
Senate Republicans made this counter offer that looked to be
about a trillion dollars. But I think there's a key
point here that we have to remember when we're looking
at this Senate Republican proposal, and that's that it would
include two hundred and fifty seven billion dollars in new spending.
The rest of it is money that's already been approved
(02:53):
by Congress, most of it in the COVID relief package,
whereas Joe Biden's proposal is one point seven trillion dollars
and new spending. So they're actually still pretty far apart,
and we're talking about one and a half trillion dollars
apart in in what their proposals are. They the key
here is what they're willing to spend that money on.
So if they're they're saying, maybe they can spend this money,
(03:15):
maybe they eventually get at NI new money, but it's
five hundred billion dollars to rebuild roads, billion dollars for
a public transit system, seventy two billion dollars for water infrastructure,
and fifty six billion dollars for airports, among other sort
of programs, including some money for broadband and some other
infrastructure things. One of the key points with all of
(03:36):
this is always how to pay for it? You know,
for the larger planned Democrats would want to raise some
taxes in the Republican plan, and they say, you know,
we don't need to raise taxes. A lot of what
we would do would be reallocating some of that COVID
relief money. That's right. I mean, Republicans have just drawn
a hardline. They're unwilling to support anything that raises taxes,
(03:57):
and so that's why we see them moving that COVID
money that I'm used COVID money so far into these projects.
Because any proposal that raises taxes are that spend so
much money that it would need a tax increase their
opposed to Whereas Joe Biden has said he wants to
raise the corporate tax rate lower than what it was
when Republicans lowered it in seventeen, but higher than what
(04:17):
it is now, and you know what we talk about,
the back and forth and the negotiations, I mean it
is it does seem like things are at least happening.
You know, the White House came out with a smaller plan.
The Republicans are countering with their plan. So the negotiations
are ongoing. But you know a lot of Democrats are
getting frustrated and saying, hey, we might have to pull
the plug. And then you know, it goes back to
(04:38):
that whole reconciliation process that we've talked about a lot before,
passing it without any Republican support. But would there be
enough Democratic support to even do that. Senator Joe Mansion
is always a key figure in these talks when we
talk about doing that. That's a big question that is
not answered yet. I mean, a lot of Democrats have
said they would like to pull the plug and go
(04:58):
out alan But you know, I think Senator Mansion from
West Virginia really wants something bipartisan to happen. He thinks
that it's important for America to see Congress working together,
getting something done together. And I think he's going to
withhold his support for a Democrats only path as long
as he thinks that there's some hope that Republicans can
(05:19):
sign off on something, and so that's why I think
we might see a situation where there's a bipartisan deal,
but a very small one that gets everyone on board
so they can say, look, Congress accomplished something, and then
Democrats try to do the rest on their own without Republicans.
There's so many angles to all of this. So one
of the other big sticking points is what is the
(05:40):
definition of infrastructure. You know, the White House and Senate
Republicans are pretty far apart on all of this. The
Republicans want to stick to that traditional stuff airports, Rhodes bridges,
all that, and Democrats want to widen that definition. What
are they talking about when they talk about infrastructure in
the broader sense, because you know, the pandemic change lot
of stuff. You know, we need a high speed internet access.
(06:03):
I mean that became critical throughout the pandemic. You couldn't
do anything unless you had some internet at home. Broadband
is a great example of a place where Democrats said,
we think broadband should be included in infrastructure. It's a
utility basically, it's how people access the world, and at
first Republicans were like no, and then they came around
and we saw in Thursday's proposal that they said, Okay,
(06:25):
you know, we're game to include broadband, will give you
money for broadband. And I think important to remember too
a lot of the places where there isn't access to
broadband internet are rule places which tend to vote for Republicans.
But there's some other examples of things Democrats have said
they think should be considered infrastructure that they haven't gotten
Republicans to come around to. One of those being universal
(06:46):
childcare making it easy for people who couldn't otherwise afford
childcare to get access to it. And an elder care.
You know a lot of aging baby boomers children being
forced to sort of grapple with how to take care
of their aging an ill parent and having more in
home care for the elderly was another piece that Democrats
had wanted to be included infrastructure, but Republicans weren't biting. Yeah,
(07:09):
it seems like, you know, both sides do want to
make a plan of these infrastructure projects are usually big
wins for lawmakers when they can go back to their
homes and say, look what we were getting done. So
it seems like they're still negotiating and we'll see how
that progresses. I didn't want to mention that. Vice President
Kamala Harris is also announcing some commitments from a dozen
companies and organizations to invest in Central America, Guatemala, Honduras,
(07:33):
El Salvador, parts where we're seeing a lot of migrants
coming over to the United States. She was put in
charge of finding the root cause of what all this
migration was by President Biden. And so they see that investments,
you know, they think that investments in these countries will
help them that flow. Yeah, you know, long have there
has been the theory that, um, when migrants are coming
(07:55):
from a certain part of the world, that if we
could improve the economic conditions at home, are gonna want
to leave home. They're gonna want to stay where they are.
And I think that's true for the most part, but
we are grappling at the moment with how to fund that.
In more prosperous American times. The American taxpayer paid for it,
but I think the politics of that would have been
really difficult, especially as you know, disagreeing over whether or
(08:16):
not broadband councils in American infrastructure. So we saw Vice
President Harris announcing that she would back this private public
partnership to have businesses, particularly American businesses, investing more in
that part of Central America known as the Triangle to
try to help improve the poverty and the violence that
are there as sort of a broader approach to migration
(08:37):
and the issues of the US is seeing at the border.
Last week, we saw President Biden call on the Intelligence
Committee to try to find some conclusion as far as
the origin of the COVID nineteen virus. China is not
very happy with all of that. There's been a lot
of news about it lately. You know, what can the
intelligence community do without more cooperation from China? And this
(09:02):
feels like one of those things we're not going to
get an answer to. I mean, it is gonna probably
be something we're researching and talking about for months years
to come, because you're right, China has not cooperated and
really from day one, China has not cooperated on trying
to figure out where this virus came from, what caused it.
Um you know, there's a lot of talk about we
(09:23):
can't find the point at which it jumped from animals
to humans, which we've been able to do in past
UM outbreaks. Well, part of that is we also can
go investigate like we have in past outbreaks. So I
think we're really seeing the US step up UM, that pressure,
step up that UM effort to figure out what happened.
And I think that we're seeing a real moment where
(09:45):
we're saying the answers that we've had so far insufficient
and more investigations are needed to get to the bottom
of this. Gender Gibson, Deputy Washington Digital editor at NBC News,
thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
(10:06):
Based on the parts of the report they have been released,
it's not clear if this upper respiratory virus that yet
sick and many people in Wuhan researchers who worked at
the Rulan Institute of Virology, if this was just COVID,
or if it was just any seasonal viral illness. Joining
us now is Ken Delaney, in National Security correspondent at
(10:27):
NBC News. Thanks for joining us. Ken, great to be
with you. I want to talk about the latest that
we're hearing on the origins of the COVID nineteen pandemic.
For a long time, we had been hearing the prevailing
theory of how the virus originated came from bats, transferred
to another animal, hopped on over to humans, But there
(10:48):
had always been this theory that the virus might have
leaked from a lab there in Wuhan, China. That's getting
a little more play right now. We've seen a lot
of things walked back from the Chinese government. We just
saw a U S Intelligence report that identified three researchers
at this Wuhan lab who sought treatment at a hospital
after falling ill in November of twenty nine, symptoms that
(11:11):
were similar to those that have COVID nineteen. So can
help us walk through some of what we're hearing now,
you know, I think you you set it up really
well by saying that it's getting more play now, because
actually the facts on the ground have not changed much.
But what what's happened is, you know, you had the
Trump administration, uh, the China bashing, you know, hot rhetoric,
(11:34):
Trump administration saying a lot of this stuff, and it
was discounted often in many circles it was discounted. But
in fact, right from the beginning, my U S intelligence
sources were very skeptical about the origins of this because
they said to themselves, look, these coronaviruses come from baths
that generally are in cave the thousand miles from Muhan.
But somehow this virus first arose in the human population
(11:58):
in Wuhan, which just happens to be the center of
biological research in China, and just happens to be the
location of the only sort of high level lab where
they're doing that you know, really uh you know, high
end research where they wear the you know, crazy suits
that we've seen in the movies. And so that's the
circumstantial case, right, And then they saw that China was
(12:21):
covering up, was obfuscating, and then when they asked for
data and information about what was going on in the lab,
um they weren't getting it. And so now a lot
of scientists initially discounted the notion that there could have
been and we're by the way, we're talking about an
accidental release in the lab. No serious authority that I
know alleges that this was somehow bioweapon. The prevailing theory
(12:43):
is that they were studying coronavirus is in this lab
and that you know, somebody may have gotten infected or
some in some way the virus escaped and got into
the human population. Initially, the woman who runs the lab said,
we're not working on we weren't working on any coronavirus
similar to COVID nineteen, and she also said that nobody
(13:03):
from her lab got sick. Well, now we have this
U S intelligence report that the Wall Street Journal first
reported on, and that we we have confirmed that the
US government has identified through another foreign intelligence service, were
told three researchers at the lab who sought hospital treatment
for what is described as COVID like symptoms, pneumonia like symptoms. Now,
we don't believe the US government knows whether that was COVID.
(13:26):
But what's interesting about it is, if it's true, it
contradicts what the head of that Uhan Institute of Rology
um said, So it raises questions about her credibility. Um.
It's so it's obviously not a spoken gun. It's one
piece of circumstantial evidence. Then there's other pieces. There's you know,
the State Department put out a fact sheet in in January.
It was the Trump administration on the way at the door,
(13:46):
so it didn't get as much attention. But it also
alleged that the Chinese military was doing secret experiments at
that lab, which the lab folks have denied. Um. So
what you're seeing is a lot of scientists and people
who had initially kind of um downplayed the idea that
there could have been an Excel release wanting to take
(14:07):
another look at it. And also in part because a
year and a half later, they have not been able
to identify an animal to human vector. That doesn't mean
they never will, but they haven't so far after in
a very intensive search. You know, China has not been
credible throughout this whole thing. Unfortunately. You know, a team
of researchers from the w h O went out to research.
(14:27):
You know, all the reports that we saw was that
they were very limited in the scope of what they
could look into. Even some of these scientists that signed
onto the letters saying this definitely came from an animals.
Some of them are changing their tune. Everybody's just calling
for more openness and more research into what's going on.
That w h O situation was pretty disheartening because you
had some very reputable scientists go over there for three
(14:51):
days and they visited the lab, but they didn't really
have access to firstand information. They weren't able to interview researchers, uh,
you know, independently, and they and they emerge and said,
not only did they say we don't think, we don't
believe in the lab theory, they say it doesn't merit
further investigation. Well, immediately the head of the w h
O contradicted them because he has access, presumably to some
(15:14):
of the intelligence that the U. S. Government has, And
I'm sure phone calls were made. And the U. S.
Government's position was, wait a second, we can't rule this out.
I mean, we're not saying we can prove it, or
even that it's the leading theory. It's there are two
essential theory that this virus you know, naturally occurring transmitted
from baths to an animal host to humans like other
stars viruses have done, and or that there was this
(15:36):
accidental lab theory. And and the U. S. Government's position is,
we are examining both possibilities and both merit investigation. And
now you're right, you're seeing more. Even Anthony Faucci, who
initially really kind of pooh pooed the lab theory, recently
has been saying, no, I'm not ruling that out at all. Now.
The problem though, my U. S. Intelligence sources tell me
is that at the end of the day, we may
(15:58):
never know if China can he used to UM deny
access to data, and they've purged databases, they've you know,
they've they've made it really difficult to get information. UM.
Obviously the U S and Telis communities focusing resources on
trying to find out But even if they found let's
say the National Security Agency intercepted some would seem like
(16:18):
smoking gun emails, you know, proving that in fact the
Chinese we're talking about a lab league. They would be
concerned at this point that that's disinformation that the Chinese
were trying to you know, run an operation on them.
So it's really gonna be difficult to find ground truth
in this now when we're having a sort of a
spy versus spy situation. Definitely, And now what's kind of
(16:39):
coming into focus. They're looking at this Chinese mine where
six miners I guess got sick. This is stemming back
to April of UM. They were there, they were clearing
that Guanu from there. Three of them died, but they
all came down with this similar type of illness UM,
and they went back there. They took a bunch of samples.
(16:59):
From there, they were able to identify several new coronaviruses.
And you know, so this is one of those sticking points. Genetically,
everything points to stars Covy to the one that causes
COVID nineteen coming from animals, something of a natural evolution.
And these new coronaviruses are all similar percentages of sixty
(17:20):
in some cases similar to stars Covy two, but they're
not exactly the same. But but just as we've been talking,
everything just kind of comes together, and now people are
focused on this. There's not enough information about that incident
now and people want to know what's going on. Yeah,
I mean it's really interesting. You know, the mind that
you referred to, you know, where these miners got sick.
(17:42):
The Wuhuan Institute of Virology was called in to investigate
that situation, and they took samples and so and this was,
by the way, this wasn't the only these were the
only day they samples they were taking. They were they
made a habit of going into caves and places where
bats were to find stars Stars viruses because they were
studying those, and they brought them back to the lab
and and they the problem is, we don't know they have.
(18:05):
They've said, we didn't have a virus that was close
to UM to COVID nineteen, but UM, we don't know that.
Because we don't the US government hasn't had access to
the data to UM, and they haven't been able to
interview the researchers. They haven't seen lab notes, the kind
of things that a normal investigation would call for, and
so UM it's really interesting that that this lab was
(18:28):
studying these viruses that are so close to COVID nineteen,
and in fact, they were also doing what's known as
gain and function experiments, which makes the virus is more
contagious and more able UH to infect humans. And those
are controversial. Some sciences think, you know that those shouldn't
be done because they're dangerous. They were working on it,
and by the way, they're not doing this again. They
weren't doing this UH as for some kind of UH
(18:50):
bioweapon as far as we know they were. They were
doing this to try to learn about coronavirus is to
you know, to to develop vaccines and prevent them from spreading.
But if there was an accident, the world needs to
know that because it has implications for how we would respond,
how We understand this pandemic and certainly should be a
warning to China that it needs to get its house
(19:12):
in order in terms of its lab safety and security.
Ken Delanian, national security correspondent at NBC News. Thank you
very much for joining us. Thank you very much, Oscar,
great to be with you. That's it for today. Join
us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on both
(19:34):
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your podcast. This episode of the Daily Divers produced by
Vic Right and engineered by Tony Sarantina him Oscar Ramirez,
and this was your Daily Dive
It's Monday, mate. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. President Biden continues to promote
his infrastructure plan across the country, but behind the scenes,
negotiations continue with not much progress. Senate Republicans offered a
counter proposal that was just under one trillion dollars, with
(00:23):
money for more traditional projects and being paid for in
part by using COVID relief funds. There's also still debate
on the exact definition of infrastructure. Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington
Digital editor at NBC News, joins US for infrastructure talks, immigration,
and Biden, calling for a COVID probe next the coronavirus
(00:44):
lab league there. He got extra tention last week as
we found out that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute
of Virology got sick in November, and they sought medical
treatment at a hospital. Their symptoms were consistent with COVID
and common seasonal illness. Also being talked about was an
abandoned Chinese mind where people got sick. After clearing that guana,
(01:06):
scientists from the Wuhan Institute took samples and found several
new coronaviruses in Handlinian, national security correspondent at NBC News,
joins us for why calls to investigate the coronavirus origins
have intensified. It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:27):
We have stayed within the boundaries of our original plan.
I think that's what the American people think of when
they think of of infrastructure, and that's certainly what we
do to Joining us now is Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington
Digital editor at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Ginger,
thanks for having me. We've seen President Biden hitting the
road across the country touting out his infrastructure plan. He's
(01:50):
really trying to sell it. Behind the scenes, negotiations have
been going on between Senate Republicans and Democrats. It hasn't
really seemed to be going much any where. The original
proposal was somewhere in the two point to five trillion
dollar range. The White House came back with something paired
down to about one point seven trillion, and it still
(02:11):
wasn't working out. So Republicans countered, again, they have something
that's just under one trillion dollars, really focused on kind
of that traditional meaning of infrastructure So Ginger, tell us
a little bit about what we're seeing in that counter
proposal from Senate Republicans. Yeah, you know, it is at
times look like negotiations on an infrastructure package. We're totally dead,
(02:31):
but they're not quite dead. As you said, on Thursday,
Senate Republicans made this counter offer that looked to be
about a trillion dollars. But I think there's a key
point here that we have to remember when we're looking
at this Senate Republican proposal, and that's that it would
include two hundred and fifty seven billion dollars in new spending.
The rest of it is money that's already been approved
(02:53):
by Congress, most of it in the COVID relief package,
whereas Joe Biden's proposal is one point seven trillion dollars
and new spending. So they're actually still pretty far apart,
and we're talking about one and a half trillion dollars
apart in in what their proposals are. They the key
here is what they're willing to spend that money on.
So if they're they're saying, maybe they can spend this money,
(03:15):
maybe they eventually get at NI new money, but it's
five hundred billion dollars to rebuild roads, billion dollars for
a public transit system, seventy two billion dollars for water infrastructure,
and fifty six billion dollars for airports, among other sort
of programs, including some money for broadband and some other
infrastructure things. One of the key points with all of
(03:36):
this is always how to pay for it? You know,
for the larger planned Democrats would want to raise some
taxes in the Republican plan, and they say, you know,
we don't need to raise taxes. A lot of what
we would do would be reallocating some of that COVID
relief money. That's right. I mean, Republicans have just drawn
a hardline. They're unwilling to support anything that raises taxes,
(03:57):
and so that's why we see them moving that COVID
money that I'm used COVID money so far into these projects.
Because any proposal that raises taxes are that spend so
much money that it would need a tax increase their
opposed to Whereas Joe Biden has said he wants to
raise the corporate tax rate lower than what it was
when Republicans lowered it in seventeen, but higher than what
(04:17):
it is now, and you know what we talk about,
the back and forth and the negotiations, I mean it
is it does seem like things are at least happening.
You know, the White House came out with a smaller plan.
The Republicans are countering with their plan. So the negotiations
are ongoing. But you know a lot of Democrats are
getting frustrated and saying, hey, we might have to pull
the plug. And then you know, it goes back to
(04:38):
that whole reconciliation process that we've talked about a lot before,
passing it without any Republican support. But would there be
enough Democratic support to even do that. Senator Joe Mansion
is always a key figure in these talks when we
talk about doing that. That's a big question that is
not answered yet. I mean, a lot of Democrats have
said they would like to pull the plug and go
(04:58):
out alan But you know, I think Senator Mansion from
West Virginia really wants something bipartisan to happen. He thinks
that it's important for America to see Congress working together,
getting something done together. And I think he's going to
withhold his support for a Democrats only path as long
as he thinks that there's some hope that Republicans can
(05:19):
sign off on something, and so that's why I think
we might see a situation where there's a bipartisan deal,
but a very small one that gets everyone on board
so they can say, look, Congress accomplished something, and then
Democrats try to do the rest on their own without Republicans.
There's so many angles to all of this. So one
of the other big sticking points is what is the
(05:40):
definition of infrastructure. You know, the White House and Senate
Republicans are pretty far apart on all of this. The
Republicans want to stick to that traditional stuff airports, Rhodes bridges,
all that, and Democrats want to widen that definition. What
are they talking about when they talk about infrastructure in
the broader sense, because you know, the pandemic change lot
of stuff. You know, we need a high speed internet access.
(06:03):
I mean that became critical throughout the pandemic. You couldn't
do anything unless you had some internet at home. Broadband
is a great example of a place where Democrats said,
we think broadband should be included in infrastructure. It's a
utility basically, it's how people access the world, and at
first Republicans were like no, and then they came around
and we saw in Thursday's proposal that they said, Okay,
(06:25):
you know, we're game to include broadband, will give you
money for broadband. And I think important to remember too
a lot of the places where there isn't access to
broadband internet are rule places which tend to vote for Republicans.
But there's some other examples of things Democrats have said
they think should be considered infrastructure that they haven't gotten
Republicans to come around to. One of those being universal
(06:46):
childcare making it easy for people who couldn't otherwise afford
childcare to get access to it. And an elder care.
You know a lot of aging baby boomers children being
forced to sort of grapple with how to take care
of their aging an ill parent and having more in
home care for the elderly was another piece that Democrats
had wanted to be included infrastructure, but Republicans weren't biting. Yeah,
(07:09):
it seems like, you know, both sides do want to
make a plan of these infrastructure projects are usually big
wins for lawmakers when they can go back to their
homes and say, look what we were getting done. So
it seems like they're still negotiating and we'll see how
that progresses. I didn't want to mention that. Vice President
Kamala Harris is also announcing some commitments from a dozen
companies and organizations to invest in Central America, Guatemala, Honduras,
(07:33):
El Salvador, parts where we're seeing a lot of migrants
coming over to the United States. She was put in
charge of finding the root cause of what all this
migration was by President Biden. And so they see that investments,
you know, they think that investments in these countries will
help them that flow. Yeah, you know, long have there
has been the theory that, um, when migrants are coming
(07:55):
from a certain part of the world, that if we
could improve the economic conditions at home, are gonna want
to leave home. They're gonna want to stay where they are.
And I think that's true for the most part, but
we are grappling at the moment with how to fund that.
In more prosperous American times. The American taxpayer paid for it,
but I think the politics of that would have been
really difficult, especially as you know, disagreeing over whether or
(08:16):
not broadband councils in American infrastructure. So we saw Vice
President Harris announcing that she would back this private public
partnership to have businesses, particularly American businesses, investing more in
that part of Central America known as the Triangle to
try to help improve the poverty and the violence that
are there as sort of a broader approach to migration
(08:37):
and the issues of the US is seeing at the border.
Last week, we saw President Biden call on the Intelligence
Committee to try to find some conclusion as far as
the origin of the COVID nineteen virus. China is not
very happy with all of that. There's been a lot
of news about it lately. You know, what can the
intelligence community do without more cooperation from China? And this
(09:02):
feels like one of those things we're not going to
get an answer to. I mean, it is gonna probably
be something we're researching and talking about for months years
to come, because you're right, China has not cooperated and
really from day one, China has not cooperated on trying
to figure out where this virus came from, what caused it.
Um you know, there's a lot of talk about we
(09:23):
can't find the point at which it jumped from animals
to humans, which we've been able to do in past
UM outbreaks. Well, part of that is we also can
go investigate like we have in past outbreaks. So I
think we're really seeing the US step up UM, that pressure,
step up that UM effort to figure out what happened.
And I think that we're seeing a real moment where
(09:45):
we're saying the answers that we've had so far insufficient
and more investigations are needed to get to the bottom
of this. Gender Gibson, Deputy Washington Digital editor at NBC News,
thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
(10:06):
Based on the parts of the report they have been released,
it's not clear if this upper respiratory virus that yet
sick and many people in Wuhan researchers who worked at
the Rulan Institute of Virology, if this was just COVID,
or if it was just any seasonal viral illness. Joining
us now is Ken Delaney, in National Security correspondent at
(10:27):
NBC News. Thanks for joining us. Ken, great to be
with you. I want to talk about the latest that
we're hearing on the origins of the COVID nineteen pandemic.
For a long time, we had been hearing the prevailing
theory of how the virus originated came from bats, transferred
to another animal, hopped on over to humans, But there
(10:48):
had always been this theory that the virus might have
leaked from a lab there in Wuhan, China. That's getting
a little more play right now. We've seen a lot
of things walked back from the Chinese government. We just
saw a U S Intelligence report that identified three researchers
at this Wuhan lab who sought treatment at a hospital
after falling ill in November of twenty nine, symptoms that
(11:11):
were similar to those that have COVID nineteen. So can
help us walk through some of what we're hearing now,
you know, I think you you set it up really
well by saying that it's getting more play now, because
actually the facts on the ground have not changed much.
But what what's happened is, you know, you had the
Trump administration, uh, the China bashing, you know, hot rhetoric,
(11:34):
Trump administration saying a lot of this stuff, and it
was discounted often in many circles it was discounted. But
in fact, right from the beginning, my U S intelligence
sources were very skeptical about the origins of this because
they said to themselves, look, these coronaviruses come from baths
that generally are in cave the thousand miles from Muhan.
But somehow this virus first arose in the human population
(11:58):
in Wuhan, which just happens to be the center of
biological research in China, and just happens to be the
location of the only sort of high level lab where
they're doing that you know, really uh you know, high
end research where they wear the you know, crazy suits
that we've seen in the movies. And so that's the
circumstantial case, right, And then they saw that China was
(12:21):
covering up, was obfuscating, and then when they asked for
data and information about what was going on in the lab,
um they weren't getting it. And so now a lot
of scientists initially discounted the notion that there could have
been and we're by the way, we're talking about an
accidental release in the lab. No serious authority that I
know alleges that this was somehow bioweapon. The prevailing theory
(12:43):
is that they were studying coronavirus is in this lab
and that you know, somebody may have gotten infected or
some in some way the virus escaped and got into
the human population. Initially, the woman who runs the lab said,
we're not working on we weren't working on any coronavirus
similar to COVID nineteen, and she also said that nobody
(13:03):
from her lab got sick. Well, now we have this
U S intelligence report that the Wall Street Journal first
reported on, and that we we have confirmed that the
US government has identified through another foreign intelligence service, were
told three researchers at the lab who sought hospital treatment
for what is described as COVID like symptoms, pneumonia like symptoms. Now,
we don't believe the US government knows whether that was COVID.
(13:26):
But what's interesting about it is, if it's true, it
contradicts what the head of that Uhan Institute of Rology
um said, So it raises questions about her credibility. Um.
It's so it's obviously not a spoken gun. It's one
piece of circumstantial evidence. Then there's other pieces. There's you know,
the State Department put out a fact sheet in in January.
It was the Trump administration on the way at the door,
(13:46):
so it didn't get as much attention. But it also
alleged that the Chinese military was doing secret experiments at
that lab, which the lab folks have denied. Um. So
what you're seeing is a lot of scientists and people
who had initially kind of um downplayed the idea that
there could have been an Excel release wanting to take
(14:07):
another look at it. And also in part because a
year and a half later, they have not been able
to identify an animal to human vector. That doesn't mean
they never will, but they haven't so far after in
a very intensive search. You know, China has not been
credible throughout this whole thing. Unfortunately. You know, a team
of researchers from the w h O went out to research.
(14:27):
You know, all the reports that we saw was that
they were very limited in the scope of what they
could look into. Even some of these scientists that signed
onto the letters saying this definitely came from an animals.
Some of them are changing their tune. Everybody's just calling
for more openness and more research into what's going on.
That w h O situation was pretty disheartening because you
had some very reputable scientists go over there for three
(14:51):
days and they visited the lab, but they didn't really
have access to firstand information. They weren't able to interview researchers, uh,
you know, independently, and they and they emerge and said,
not only did they say we don't think, we don't
believe in the lab theory, they say it doesn't merit
further investigation. Well, immediately the head of the w h
O contradicted them because he has access, presumably to some
(15:14):
of the intelligence that the U. S. Government has, And
I'm sure phone calls were made. And the U. S.
Government's position was, wait a second, we can't rule this out.
I mean, we're not saying we can prove it, or
even that it's the leading theory. It's there are two
essential theory that this virus you know, naturally occurring transmitted
from baths to an animal host to humans like other
stars viruses have done, and or that there was this
(15:36):
accidental lab theory. And and the U. S. Government's position is,
we are examining both possibilities and both merit investigation. And
now you're right, you're seeing more. Even Anthony Faucci, who
initially really kind of pooh pooed the lab theory, recently
has been saying, no, I'm not ruling that out at all. Now.
The problem though, my U. S. Intelligence sources tell me
is that at the end of the day, we may
(15:58):
never know if China can he used to UM deny
access to data, and they've purged databases, they've you know,
they've they've made it really difficult to get information. UM.
Obviously the U S and Telis communities focusing resources on
trying to find out But even if they found let's
say the National Security Agency intercepted some would seem like
(16:18):
smoking gun emails, you know, proving that in fact the
Chinese we're talking about a lab league. They would be
concerned at this point that that's disinformation that the Chinese
were trying to you know, run an operation on them.
So it's really gonna be difficult to find ground truth
in this now when we're having a sort of a
spy versus spy situation. Definitely, And now what's kind of
(16:39):
coming into focus. They're looking at this Chinese mine where
six miners I guess got sick. This is stemming back
to April of UM. They were there, they were clearing
that Guanu from there. Three of them died, but they
all came down with this similar type of illness UM,
and they went back there. They took a bunch of samples.
(16:59):
From there, they were able to identify several new coronaviruses.
And you know, so this is one of those sticking points. Genetically,
everything points to stars Covy to the one that causes
COVID nineteen coming from animals, something of a natural evolution.
And these new coronaviruses are all similar percentages of sixty
(17:20):
in some cases similar to stars Covy two, but they're
not exactly the same. But but just as we've been talking,
everything just kind of comes together, and now people are
focused on this. There's not enough information about that incident
now and people want to know what's going on. Yeah,
I mean it's really interesting. You know, the mind that
you referred to, you know, where these miners got sick.
(17:42):
The Wuhuan Institute of Virology was called in to investigate
that situation, and they took samples and so and this was,
by the way, this wasn't the only these were the
only day they samples they were taking. They were they
made a habit of going into caves and places where
bats were to find stars Stars viruses because they were
studying those, and they brought them back to the lab
and and they the problem is, we don't know they have.
(18:05):
They've said, we didn't have a virus that was close
to UM to COVID nineteen, but UM, we don't know that.
Because we don't the US government hasn't had access to
the data to UM, and they haven't been able to
interview the researchers. They haven't seen lab notes, the kind
of things that a normal investigation would call for, and
so UM it's really interesting that that this lab was
(18:28):
studying these viruses that are so close to COVID nineteen,
and in fact, they were also doing what's known as
gain and function experiments, which makes the virus is more
contagious and more able UH to infect humans. And those
are controversial. Some sciences think, you know that those shouldn't
be done because they're dangerous. They were working on it,
and by the way, they're not doing this again. They
weren't doing this UH as for some kind of UH
(18:50):
bioweapon as far as we know they were. They were
doing this to try to learn about coronavirus is to
you know, to to develop vaccines and prevent them from spreading.
But if there was an accident, the world needs to
know that because it has implications for how we would respond,
how We understand this pandemic and certainly should be a
warning to China that it needs to get its house
(19:12):
in order in terms of its lab safety and security.
Ken Delanian, national security correspondent at NBC News. Thank you
very much for joining us. Thank you very much, Oscar,
great to be with you. That's it for today. Join
us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on both
(19:34):
Twitter and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us on I Heard Radio, or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of the Daily Divers produced by
Vic Right and engineered by Tony Sarantina him Oscar Ramirez,
and this was your Daily Dive
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