https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/19/bannon_chinese_communist_party_will_be_nervous_trump_said_they_were_knowingly_responsible_for_pandemic.html
Former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon told FNC's Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures" that President Trump's suggestion Saturday that maybe the Chinese government "deliberately" did not inform the world health organization or other countries about the early coronavirus outbreak.
Bannon said China knew as early as December 2019 that the virus was spreading from human to human but told the world health organization in Mid-January that it was not. "This is about the Chinese Communist Party, and they are knowingly responsible for what happened," he said.
TRUMP: Now, the question was asked, would you be angry at China? Well, the answer might very well be a very resounding yes. But it depends. Was it a mistake that got out of control, or was it done deliberately, OK? There's a big difference between those two. In either event, they should have let us go in. You know, we asked to go in very early, and they didn't want us in. I think they were embarrassed.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Steve, that was the first time the president actually publicly raised the question of, was it deliberate? I found that stunning.
You haven't heard the president raise such an issue before. Your reaction?
STEVE BANNON: One of the key phrases the president used -- and I think, if I was in Beijing, I'd be very nervous right now -- he said, knowingly responsible, knowingly responsible.
And I think -- let's set aside for a second, this is a biological Chernobyl. But let's set aside a second the lab, and did it leak out of the lab with a technician on trying to find a vaccine? Let's leave aside the fact that, were they doing gain of function experiments there, against everybody's knowledge?
Let's leave aside for a second whether they have an offensive biological weapons program. That's all going to be investigated. As Pompeo and Senator Cotton says, that's all now being investigated by intelligence services, by the world's health organizations, et cetera.
Let's go back to knowingly responsible. And let's be precise. This is not the Chinese people and this is not China. The Chinese people, the decent, hardworking people of China, are the single biggest victims here.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: This is about the Chinese Communist Party, and they are knowingly responsible for what happened.
This is an act of commission. They knew, as a matter of fact, no later than the last week of December of 2019, they knew they had human-to-human transmission and community spread.
