Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday accused Dr. Anthony Fauci and the mainstream media of ignoring former President Donald Trump last year on the origins of the coronavirus and instead siding with China.
"What actually should have happened is journalists should have done their job," Meadows told Fox News' "America's Newsroom. "There was a Pulitzer Prize waiting for somebody to report on it and candidly what they did is there was so much animosity toward Donald Trump, the president and his administration they weren’t willing to look at the facts."
Meadows' comment came in response to a statement from Harvard scientist Alina Chan, who told NBC News this week that at the beginnings of the pandemic, "it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins."
Meadows commented that the White House had shared information with a number of reporters, as well as with Fauci, but "in the end, Trump's adversaries were willing to ignore the details."
"What is troubling about this is we just heard (National Security Advisor) Jake Sullivan say we need China to actually help us out with this investigation," said Meadows. "Well, they haven’t been willing to do that for over 12 months now. It is time that we hold them accountable and actually take action and if not, Joe Biden is going to be the all-words, no-action president when it comes to holding China accountable.
But according to the Chinese, "it's been America's fault," said Meadows. "When are we going to say enough is enough?"
But Trump, said Meadows, was "very direct and candid" about holding China accountable for the pandemic.
And now, there is a new push to have the World Health Organization once again look at the origins of the virus, but "it didn't work then and it's not working now," said Meadows.
What needs to happen, he continued, is if the WHO is not going to be effective, to get out of it and if China will not be transparent on COVID, cut off U.S. aid.
"We still, as the U.S. taxpayers, give them U.S. money to help them with different kinds of initiatives in China," said Meadows. "Cut it off. Make sure we have sanctions and hold them accountable until we see the transparency."
He also criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement that she is forming a Wealth and Equity Committee, to be chaired by Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has said he'll be appointing members from his party to the committee as well.
"Never underestimate DC Democrats' willingness to try a narrative to create a committee that will do absolutely nothing," said Meadows.
However, they can fix the equality situation with a call to Trump, who "did fix it," he said.
"We had the lowest unemployment, Latino unemployment, lowest African American unemployment, the most women in the workforce," said Meadows. "We had rising wages for many of the minority communities. Somehow they think DC is going to fix this. This is all about a political narrative and not about the people they're trying to help."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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