Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that one of the things the U.S. should do to China in retaliation for the pandemic is going to be removing America’s supply chain from the region.
After discussing the evidence that points in the direction of the pandemic originating from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Tapper asked McCaul what President Joe Biden should do, and what the world should do in response.
“My response to this whole thing is supply chain,” McCaul said. “We need to pull our supply chain out of the region, that being medical supply, rare earth mineral supply. And a bill that’s going through Congress right now, bipartisan, that I’m working on, the CHIPS for America Act, advanced semiconductor chips, which are the brains in everything from your iPhone to the F-35. If we can pull these chains out of China, it will hurt them economically. And that would be very punitive in nature.”
WATCH:
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED VIA CNN:
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I’m Jake Tapper. As COVID cases and deaths continue to drop in the United States, the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 is heating up. This week, President Biden ordered a 90-day investigation into whether the virus could have come out of a lab in Wuhan, China. And we learned that several lab researchers in Wuhan were hospitalized in November 2019, earlier than Chinese officials had revealed.
Joining us now, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Texas Congressman Michael McCaul. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for joining us.
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): Thanks, Jake.
TAPPER: So, you conducted your own investigation into the pandemic’s origins on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And your committee was just briefed on this last week. Based on what you’ve seen, do you think it’s more likely than not that the coronavirus emerged naturally or from a lab accident?
MCCAUL: You know, I do think it’s more likely than not it emerged out of the lab, most likely accidentally, for several reasons. And, first of all, Jake, let me say, this is the worst cover-up in human history that we have seen, resulting in 3.5 million deaths, creating economic devastation around the globe. As you mentioned, though, it was just declassified that three of the researchers were actually hospitalized in November of 2019 with flu-like symptoms consistent with COVID. That was suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party. Since that time, in December, they silenced and detained the doctors who were reporting a SARS-like virus, which, under international health regulations, had to be reported within 24 hours. They went and destroyed lab samples. They wouldn’t admit it was human-to-human, and then, working with the WHO, failed to report to the world that we had a local epidemic that was now going into a global pandemic. So, time and time again, we’re seeing this cover-up. A couple more facts here, that there were two State Department cables in 2018 that called into question the safety protocols at that lab. And let’s not forget, in 2004, with SARS virus, they accidentally leaked the SARS virus from that lab in 2004. They were studying corona-like viruses from bats, genetically mutating them, and then trying to develop a vaccine for what would be a next wave of a SARS-like virus, almost precisely what COVID-19 is.
TAPPER: So, let me ask you, President Biden has ordered this 90-day review by the intelligence community to see what they think. If they conclude the same thing that you have — and there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t — what should the world do? What should President Biden do?
MCCAUL: Well, I’m glad the president finally has done this. It’s long overdue. I think, because they have destroyed everything at the lab, it could be very inconclusive. We have SIGINT, signals intelligence, and HUMINT, and other forms of intelligence, but it may not be 100 percent. But I think saying it’s more likely than not is probably the right answer here. My response to this whole thing is supply chain. We need to pull our supply chain out of the region, that being medical supply, rare earth mineral supply. And a bill that’s going through Congress right now, bipartisan, that I’m working on, the CHIPS for America Act, advanced semiconductor chips, which are the brains in everything from your iPhone to the F-35. If we can pull these chains out of China, it will hurt them economically. And that would be very punitive in nature.