President Donald Trump got a laugh from the crowd gathered in the Oval Office on Tuesday when he cracked a COVID-related joke at the expense of Health &amp; Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump and the others were in the middle of his press conference — announcing a massive reduction in many popular drugs thanks to a commitment from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to invest $70 billion in domestic drug manufacturing — when Kennedy was unfortunate enough to sneeze.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Bobby Kennedy: 🤧**SNEEZES**🤧 
TRUMP: God bless you, Bobby. I hope I didn&#8217;t just catch COVID just there.. GIVE ME A PAXLOVID IMMEDIATELY!&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/8sm0n9hLBd">pic.twitter.com/8sm0n9hLBd</a>
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1973066245093097577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump was in the middle of a thought about his plans to make additional efforts down the road to reduce prices even more for American families — but when Kennedy shielded his face with his elbow and sneezed, he responded immediately. Turning toward Kennedy, he said without missing a beat, “God bless you, Bobby.”
”I hope I didn&#8217;t just catch COVID just there,” he added after a brief pause as laughter began to erupt around the room. “Do you have a Paxlovid? Paxlovid? GIVE ME A PAXLOVID, IMMEDIATELY!”
As The Daily Wire reported previously, the new TrumpRX website will allow Americans to purchase drugs directly from the government rather than going through insurance. Virtually all drugs will be discounted on TrumpRX, the White House said.
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Pfizer stepped up with a $70 billion investment, signaling a shift toward making more drugs in the United States instead of continuing to rely on imports from other nations — some of which are considered adversaries. The Trump administration has identified that reliance as a national security issue.
Trump also suggested that his administration would be working with other drug companies in addition to Pfizer in an effort to increase the number of drugs that would be made available at discounted rates.

President Trump Delivers An Announcement From The Oval Office

Trump Has Oval Office Crowd Rolling After Off-The-Cuff COVID Crack

COVID-19

Donald Trump

Executive

Pandemic

Politics

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Multiple people are dead after what appears to be an anti-ICE attack in Dallas, red state homeowners are suing over a COVID-era bailout program, and Senate Democrats stall a funding bill that would keep the lights on in Washington.
It’s Thursday, September 25, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">ICE Targeted In Dallas</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-976679" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Texas-Anti-ICE-Assault.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: A shooter opened fire at an ICE facility in Dallas on Wednesday, killing multiple immigrant detainees.
The gunman shot three detainees. Two of them died from their wounds. The shooter then turned the gun on himself and died at the scene.
Photos of the aftermath of the attack showed that bullets struck windows and walls inside the facility, but no law enforcement personnel were injured.
Federal law enforcement sources tell The Daily Wire that authorities believe that the shooter was trying to shoot at ICE officers when he aimed at an unmarked van. That van was holding illegal immigrant detainees who were being walked in for processing.
The shooter: Reports indicate the alleged shooter was 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. While not much is known about his history, authorities say he did give a glimpse into his motive after leaving shell casings behind, one engraved with the words “ANTI-ICE.” The FBI is investigating the targeted shooting, and the agency’s director, Kash Patel, says the casings prove that there was “an ideological motive” behind this attack.
Step back: The fatal shooting comes amid an uptick in left-wing violence targeting law enforcement and conservatives. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke about that during a press conference on Wednesday, where he called for his left-leaning colleagues in Congress to stop fanning the flames of the violence with their rhetoric.
“To every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing CBP, stop. To every politician demanding that ICE agents be doxxed and calling for people to go after their families, stop,” said Cruz. “This has very real consequences. Look, in America, we disagree. That&#8217;s fine. That&#8217;s the democratic process. But your political opponents are not Nazis. We need to learn to work together without demonizing each other, without attacking each other.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Biden Housing Bailout Sparks Racial Backlash</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-976677" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Race-Based-Bailout.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: A $10 billion coronavirus-era housing bailout paid Americans&#8217; mortgages and even their HOA dues. But 40% of the funds went to black Americans, due to the program including explicit racial preferences.
Now, some white residents are suing their states, saying the government illegally withheld assistance from them based on their race.
The significance: This is one of the largest race-based government wealth transfers in history. And it happened because it came during the COVID pandemic, when the United States was hemorrhaging billions of dollars.
The program is called the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/homeowner-assistance-fund">Homeowner Assistance </a><a href="https://www.ncsha.org/homeowner-assistance-fund/">Fund</a>, and it provided people up to $50,000 to pay housing-related bills. It was passed by Congress and required about half the money to go to homeowners at or below the median income, while the remainder could be allocated to wealthier individuals, with priority given to “socially disadvantaged” homeowners.
“Socially disadvantaged?” Congress didn’t define it, and the program was run separately by each state, which received money after submitting a plan to the federal government. But the Biden administration heavily suggested a definition for the states to include in their plans: “those who have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias.”
The “presumption,” the administration said, is that “the following individuals are socially disadvantaged: Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
How it played out: In Alabama, 85% of the funds went to black residents. In Georgia, it was 82%. That’s surprising because, just based on the fact that half the money was supposed to be doled out based on income, you should have seen more people of other races. Only about half of Georgians below the median income are black. 
Plaintiffs in a lawsuit say that’s because Georgia deliberately ensured that white people didn’t even know it existed. The state’s plan included texting residents to inform them about this opportunity for $50,000 – but only residents of counties with high minority populations.
The Biden administration was never clear about the criteria, but many states used the definition provided by the Biden administration. Now, Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma are being sued by residents for going along with it, despite politicians in those states claiming to oppose DEI.
The lawsuits: In Missouri, the program was administered by a housing commission, where the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general serve as commissioners. Missouri partnered with the Black Chamber of Commerce to advertise the program, and 44% of the money went to blacks, who make up less than 12% of the population. A spokeswoman for Missouri Republican Governor Mike Kehoe declined to comment on the ongoing litigation but called him “a strong advocate for removing DEI.”
In Oklahoma, plaintiffs include a massage therapist who was forced out of a job by COVID policies and her disabled-veteran husband. They point out that the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency said prominently on its website that “African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, [and] LGBTQ+” residents would get preference.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Budget Deadline Looms Over Congress</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-976675" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Budget-Battle-Rages.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: President Donald Trump canceled a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this week to discuss government funding. The president blasted Democrats’ demands as “unserious and ridiculous” as government funding is set to expire at the end of the month.
The deadline to avert a partial government shutdown is September 30, giving lawmakers less than a week. House Republicans have already passed a clean, 7-week funding extension. However, the bill is currently stalled in the Senate. Even though the GOP holds the majority, Republicans need 60 votes, which means they need some Democrat support.
Trump had planned to meet this week with Democratic leaders – Sen. Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries – but scrapped the meeting over the Democrats’ demands. The president doubled down on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that Democratic demands include free healthcare for illegal aliens, half a billion dollars for “Radical Left News Outlets,” leaving “DEAD PEOPLE on Medicaid and Social Security rolls,” and “men playing in women’s sports.” 
What Democrats are saying: Democrats say they won’t back down. Schumer and Jeffries have been on a media blitz this week following the meeting&#8217;s collapse. The main line of attack from Democrats is centered on healthcare.
“Republicans have engaged in an unprecedented assault on the healthcare of the American people throughout this year. The largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Millions of people are going to lose coverage because of what Republicans have done,” said Jeffries during an appearance on <a href="https://youtu.be/CLm2OIhjkUo?t=228">MSNBC</a>.
State of play: According to some reports, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) urged Trump to cancel the meeting. Congressional Republicans thought that Democrats were unserious and that meeting with them would only erode Republicans’ leverage.
Johnson sent the House into recess after it passed its 7-week extension, and he said he won’t recall lawmakers back to DC until after the September 30 deadline. If Democrats don’t agree to a clean bill, there will be a fight over who takes the blame for the shutdown.
&nbsp;

MRN 9.25.25 Thu Thumbnail V4

Morning Brief: Dallas ICE Attack, Housing Bailout Sparks Racial Lawsuits & D.C.’s Budget Standoff

Chuck Schumer

Dallas

Hakeem Jeffries

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

John Thune

Media

Mike Johnson

Morning Wire

Ted Cruz

Texas

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya promised on Wednesday to bring sunlight to the National Institutes of Health if confirmed as the agency’s director. 
Speaking before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Bhattacharya rebuked the NIH for its behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said did great damage to trust in scientists and academic institutions. Bhattacharya, an outspoken critic of the COVID lockdowns, was one of the first to express concerns about the safety and efficacy of vaccine mandates. 
A professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, Bhattacharya promised to bring greater transparency to the American people about the NIH&#8217;s research, which he said had failed in its fundamental mission.
&#8220;The mission of the NIH is to address the health needs the American people have and to expand life expectancy of the American people. And we have not achieved that. It&#8217;s flatlined,&#8221; he said.
This failure, paired with a massive loss in &#8220;trust in the public health establishment&#8221; during COVID, made clear the need for the NIH to reestablish trust with the American people, Bhattacharya said. 
Bhattacharya rose to prominence for his opposition to COVID lockdowns and later his concerns that COVID vaccines posed some health risks, specifically for young men. 
&#8220;Science should be an engine for freedom. Knowledge and freedom &#8230; it shouldn&#8217;t be pushing mandates for vaccines like the COVID vaccines,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The role of the scientist should not be to say that you can&#8217;t send your kid to school for two years.&#8221;
Reflecting on his experience during the COVID pandemic, Bhattacharya said that he was &#8220;tremendously proud&#8221; to advise Florida&#8217;s response to the pandemic, which sent kids back to schools way earlier than California with little to no negative impact.
Bhattacharya condemned the censorship that was pushed by the Biden administration against critics of the vaccine mandates at the time. He said during the pandemic there was a problem of &#8220;censorship and restriction&#8221; of science&#8221; and that the &#8220;root problem was that people who had alternative ideas were suppressed.&#8221;
Bhattacharya said that he himself was the victim of pressure campaigns by the Biden administration and that the Freedom of Information Act requests he filed during the pandemic were returned fully redacted.
&#8220;You can&#8217;t have trust unless you are transparent,&#8221; Bhattacharya said, saying that that Americans should be able to &#8220;see all of the activities of the NIH openly.&#8221;
Other topics discussed during the hearing included proposed cuts to NIH funding of universities and research institutions, as well as vaccines and autism. Moderate Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) pushed Bhattacharya to disavow Trump&#8217;s cap on funding for indirect funding, which he said he would evaluate if confirmed.
Bhattacharya would help allocate tens of billions of dollars in funding if confirmed by the Senate.

NIH Director Nominee Jayanta Bhattacharya Testifies In Senate Hearing

Jay Bhattacharya Promises To Bring Accountability To NIH After COVID Failure

bill Cassidy

COVID-19 Vaccine

Jay Bhattacharya

Lockdowns

Senate

spending

Trump Administration

President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration suppressed information from U.S. intelligence agencies that indicated a lab leak in communist China was the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report.
Jason Bannan, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology, joined the FBI after the 9/11 attacks to bolster its expertise in matters related to biological weapons, chemical weapons, and more.
The FBI was the only government agency that assessed that a lab leak was the likely source of the pandemic, and had &#8220;moderate confidence&#8221; in their evaluation. Four other government departments said they believed the pandemic had a zoonotic origin — meaning that it came from animals — but they said they had &#8220;low confidence&#8221; in their assessment, according to The Wall Street Journal.
When National Intelligence Director Avril Haines briefed Biden in August 2021, three months after Biden ordered a 90-day review to determine where the pandemic came from, the FBI was not asked to attend the meeting.
“Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Bannan <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/fbi-covid-19-pandemic-lab-leak-theory-dfbd8a51">told</a> The Wall Street Journal. “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”
The Wall Street Journal investigation found that officials in the Biden administration sought to keep certain information from becoming public about the lab leak theory, and that the FBI was not the only agency that thought the pandemic originated in a Chinese lab.
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Adrienne Keen, a State Department official who had worked privately for the U.N.&#8217;s World Health Organization (WHO), advocated for taking the WHO&#8217;s report on the origins of the pandemic seriously. China blocked the WHO from looking at key evidence to determine the origin of the outbreak and concluded that the pandemic had a zoonotic source.
The Trump administration withdrew from the WHO because it promoted disinformation from China about the pandemic, and it failed to hold China accountable for its numerous lies about COVID-19.
Keen left the State Department to become the director for Global Health Security for the National Intelligence Council, which was &#8220;given a central role in organizing the report&#8221; for Biden on the origins of the pandemic.
Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno, who served during the Trump administration, told Sky News last year that Keen &#8220;was very involved in discrediting the information that we were trying to present to the Secretary of State.&#8221;
&#8220;I had found out that apparently she was an outside advisor also to the World Health Organization, they are a political agency,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/us-intelligence-official-linked-to-who-was-critical-in-downplaying-covid-lab-leak-theory-during-joe-bidens-90day-probe-into-virus-origins/news-story/70cec8fe1513491a421d45b12b45a8e7">said</a>. &#8220;They&#8217;re a UN agency. So it&#8217;s just not appropriate to do work for a foreign power. And that would include the United Nations.&#8221;
FBI experts argued in favor of a thesis by Yu Ping, a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), that the exact coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic was not native to Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, the report said. That specific coronavirus is found in bats located nearly a thousand miles away in Yunnan. The theory states that if the zoonotic origin theory is correct, cases of COVID-19 should have been first detected in the area between Yunnan and Wuhan where hundreds of millions of people live. No cases were detected there and the first cases were reported in Wuhan, not far from the WIV.
Keen strongly pushed back on this theory and claimed that the absence of cases was not relevant, the report said. She claimed that the Chinese did not have the surveillance tools to detect outbreaks in those areas — a claim that the FBI pushed back on.
Sky News noted that Keen did not respond to questions about whether she &#8220;disclosed the conflict of interest in working for the WHO to&#8221; the U.S. government.
Leading scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, which falls under the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the coronavirus was genetically altered in a Chinese lab and that the pandemic originated in a lab leak. The center is responsible for analyzing health threats to the U.S. military, including infectious diseases, biological weapons, and more, The Wall Street Journal investigation reported.
WSJ continued:
<blockquote>Three scientists there—John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien—conducted a genomic analysis that concluded that the virus had been manipulated in a laboratory. Specifically they concluded that a segment of the “spike protein” that enables the virus to gain entry into human cells was constructed using techniques developed in the Wuhan lab that were described in a 2008 Chinese scientific paper. That was an indication, they argued, that the Chinese scientists were conducting “gain of function” research to see if the virus could infect humans.
Hardham was a Ph.D. and Navy reserve captain, while Cutlip, a longtime DIA scientist, had a doctorate in biomedical engineering and had served on a White House task force on the virus during the Trump administration. Chretien, a U.S. Navy doctor, had worked on biodefense for the White House and had been in charge of the pandemic warning team for the center.
They briefed their counterparts, including one of Bannan’s partners, an FBI agent with a Ph.D., on their initial findings. But in July 2021 they were instructed by a superior at the medical intelligence center not to continue sharing their work with the FBI, which they were told was “off the reservation,” according to people familiar with the matter. That order was earlier reported by The Australian.</blockquote>
The Australian&#8217;s Sharri Markson, who was also behind the Sky News segment, <a href="https://x.com/SharriMarkson/status/1694646897162785010">reported</a> last year that 90% of the information submitted by the National Center for Medical Intelligence for the report was cut out.
Then-DIA director Retired Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier did not answer questions from the Journal about whether he knew of the scientists&#8217; conclusions or efforts to censor them.
The DIA Inspector General’s office opened an investigation into the suppression of the scientists&#8217; work.
The Department of Energy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-intel-prompts-energy-dept-to-assess-covid-likely-leaked-from-wuhan-lab-report">joined</a> the FBI last year in assessing that the pandemic came from a Chinese lab.
John Ratcliffe, the former director of the ODNI, says that the pandemic originated from the Wuhan lab.
&#8220;Listen the people that had the most access to the most intelligence, including myself and secretary Pompeo, are telling you that the most likely origin of COVID-19, of the Wuhan virus was what happened&#8230; Was a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/us-intelligence-official-linked-to-who-was-critical-in-downplaying-covid-lab-leak-theory-during-joe-bidens-90day-probe-into-virus-origins/news-story/70cec8fe1513491a421d45b12b45a8e7">said</a>. &#8220;So all of the people that had access to the most data, the most intelligence, will all tell you the same thing.&#8221;

The President And First Lady Host First White House Conference on Women’s Health Research

Biden Admin Suppressed Info From Intel Agencies That Blamed ‘Lab Leak’ For COVID-19 Pandemic

China

COVID

Wuhan

House lawmakers released their final comprehensive report on COVID on Monday detailing how government officials misled the public about the origins of the pandemic. 
The <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12.04.2024-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">520-page report</a> from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic covered everything from school closures to gain-of-function research to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/fauci-unmasked" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anthony Fauci</a>’s leadership of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The release of the report comes after the committee spent two years conducting over 30 transcribed interviews and depositions, holding 25 hearings and meetings, and going over over one million pages of documents. 
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership. Trust is earned,” Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) wrote in a letter accompanying the report. “Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust. A future pandemic requires a whole of America response managed by those without personal benefit or bias. We can always do better, and for the sake of future generations of Americans, we must. It can be done.”
One of the key findings of the report was that COVID likely originated and leaked out of a lab, a view that was once banned by Facebook but now echoed by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/covid-likely-leaked-from-wuhan-lab-senate-gop-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Senate Republicans</a> and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/china-responds-to-u-s-energy-departments-revised-wuhan-lab-leak-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Energy</a>. The report said that COVID “likely emerged because of a laboratory or research related accident.”
The report noted that public officials from both China and the United States tried to hide facts that might confirm the lab leak theory. “The Chinese government, agencies within the U.S. Government, and some members of the international scientific community sought to cover-up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic,” the report said. 
For example, the lawmakers said that Fauci prompted the writing of an academic paper to undermine the lab leak theory in early 2020. The paper, known as “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pandemic-origins-subcommittee-suggests-fauci-prompted-doctors-to-draft-paper-to-disprove-lab-leak-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">argued</a> that it was not plausible for the virus to come from a lab. 
The lawmakers further concluded that the NIH funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to the report, this research was facilitated by the EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak, who the government <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hhs-moves-to-defund-ecohealth-alliance-says-action-needed-to-protect-the-public-interest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">moved to bar</a> from future federal funding earlier this year. 
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The report accused former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of “medical malpractice,” saying that he acted to publicly cover “up the total number of nursing home fatalities in New York.”  The panel previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-panel-refers-andrew-cuomo-to-doj-for-criminal-prosecution-over-covid-testimony" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made a criminal referra</a>l against Cuomo for allegedly lying about his knowledge of a report that was used to defend a New York policy that placed COVID patients in nursing homes.
Additionally, the report was critical of the Biden administration&#8217;s vaccine mandate, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court. The lawmakers wrote that the government was currently failing &#8220;to efficiently, fairly, and transparently adjudicate claims for the COVID-19 vaccine injured.&#8221;
Other findings of the report were that lockdowns of schools caused significant learning challenges for children and that pandemic aid was plagued by fraud and waste. Wenstrup wrote that the lockdowns were overly strict and broad and caused &#8220;predictable anguish and avoidable consequences.&#8221;
“Just a few short years ago, arguing that COVID came from a Chinese lab and that lockdowns &amp; authoritarian measures didn’t work would get you censored and kicked from social media,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said of the report. “This report will stand as a warning for future generations of what NOT to do.”

White House Coronavirus Task Force Holds Daily Briefing

‘What Not To Do’: Final House Report Finds Gov Misled Public About COVID

Anthony Fauci

Covid vaccine

House Oversight Committee

Vaccine Mandate

Wuhan Institute of Virology

Dr. Anthony Fauci recently published a new paper that touched on both HIV/AIDs and the COVID-19 pandemic — and in it, he not only doubled down on his insistence that COVID had a natural origin but also claimed that President-elect Donald Trump had suggested &#8220;bleach injection&#8221; as a possible treatment.
Jerry Dunleavy shared several excerpts of the paper via X, commenting, &#8220;Fauci is out with a new scientific paper on HIV/AIDS &amp; COVID-19 where he falsely claims Trump told people to inject bleach &amp; where he argues COVID-19 has a natural origin (Wuhan lab leak not even mentioned) by citing the same authors who wrote the infamous Proximal Origins paper.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Fauci is out with a new scientific paper on HIV/AIDS &amp; COVID-19 where he falsely claims Trump told people to inject bleach &amp; where he argues COVID-19 has a natural origin (Wuhan lab leak not even mentioned) by citing the same authors who wrote the infamous Proximal Origins paper. <a href="https://t.co/3Cx1NC7Emc">pic.twitter.com/3Cx1NC7Emc</a>
&mdash; Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1862484026063561168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2024</a></blockquote>
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In the highlighted sections, Fauci wrote that &#8220;abundant evidence from top evolutionary virologists and leading scientists in other fields strongly suggests that the virus jumped species from an animal reservoir to humans at the Huanan Market in Wuhan, China, and then spread throughout China and the rest of the world.&#8221;
The former White House medical advisor added, &#8220;Trump gave credence to unproven and potentially dangerous substances for COVID-19 prevention and treatment such as bleach injection.&#8221;
What Trump <a href="https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-biden-says-trump-told-americans-to-inject-bleach-to-treat-covid-19/21351899/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">actually asked</a>, during a COVID-related press conference, was whether there was a way to use an injection to introduce the benefits of ultraviolet light or &#8220;almost a cleaning&#8221; to knock out the virus before it attacked the lungs.
Fauci&#8217;s new paper comes just as Trump has named Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of Fauci&#8217;s leading critics, to head the National Institutes of Health in the incoming administration.
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Bhattacharya was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, published in 2020, and voiced opposition to the widespread lockdowns and closures during the pandemic. He told Fox News in 2023 that both Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins had &#8220;created an illusion of scientific consensus around their ideas and marginalized anyone that disagreed with them even though there wasn&#8217;t a scientific consensus. It&#8217;s a pattern of behavior that reflects an abuse of power by American scientific bureaucrats at the very top of our scientific bureaucracies.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Dr. Jay Bhattacharya talks about Dr. Anthony Fauci secretly crafting the &quot;Proximal Origin&quot; paper that dismissed the lab leak as a conspiracy theory:
&quot;Tony Fauci and Francis Collins created an illusion of scientific consensus around their ideas and marginalized anyone that… <a href="https://t.co/rzuKFQphpW">pic.twitter.com/rzuKFQphpW</a>
&mdash; KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) <a href="https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1633644247021924352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Leading Health Officials Testify On Federal Government’s Response To Monkeypox Outbreak

Fauci Published A New Paper On COVID And No One Is Buying It

Communist China

Health

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blamed the COVID pandemic for Vice President Kamala Harris losing the 2024 presidential election to President-elect Donald Trump.
Jean-Pierre made the remarks during Thursday&#8217;s press briefing, the first briefing that the administration has had since Tuesday&#8217;s election.
A reporter asked Jean-Pierre: “Does the President have any regrets about when he chose to leave the race or any regrets about deciding to run for a second term?”
“Um — so — look — um — the president is very proud of what he was able to accomplish,&#8221; Jean-Pierre responded. &#8220;He was very proud and when he made that decision to hand over the torch, pass the torch, to the vice president, he believed it was the right decision to make at that time. He believed that she was ready, she was ready to lead on day one and has been very proud in what he&#8217;s been able to deliver.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a>
&#8220;What we saw two nights ago was certainly very much in line to what we&#8217;ve seen in other G7 countries, in incumbencies, the role, the toll that the pandemic took even though we were able to lead in the world when it comes to the economy,&#8221; she claimed.
She continued, &#8220;We saw what happened in other G7 countries, and so, that is what we believe. Look, there&#8217;s going to be a lot of punditry, a lot of election experts who are going to have their opinions, who are going to have their thoughts, but the president is very, very proud, very proud of what he&#8217;s been able to accomplish and incredibly impressed by what the vice president was able to do.&#8221;
WATCH:
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CBS’s <a href="https://twitter.com/nancycordes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NancyCordes</a>: “Does the President have any regrets about when he chose to leave the race or any regrets about deciding to run for a second term?”
KJP: “Um — so — look — um — the President is very proud of what he was able to accomplish. He was very proud and when he made… <a href="https://t.co/tp77SSuRim">pic.twitter.com/tp77SSuRim</a>
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1854610170976010735?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2024</a></blockquote>

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Holds White House Media Briefing

Karine Jean-Pierre Blames Kamala’s Loss On The Pandemic

2024 Election

Elections

Kamala Harris

Karine Jean-Pierre

Dr. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/anthony-fauci" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anthony Fauci</a> appeared on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;The View&#8221; on Thursday, where he joined the ladies at the table in attacking former President Donald Trump — and had a few choice words for his own detractors as well.
Fauci, who previously served as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), gained household-name status when he became the face of the White House&#8217;s fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic — first under Trump and then under President Joe Biden — before he retired from government service.
He joined the hosts of &#8220;The View&#8221; to talk about a new book, and revealed a phrase he had learned while studying Latin that stuck with him when people where attacking him — a phrase he translated with a laugh as, &#8220;don&#8217;t let the bastards wear you down.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Dr. Anthony Fauci calls the people who oppose him &#8220;bastards.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/aIZPqkCw2b">pic.twitter.com/aIZPqkCw2b</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1803811823013028108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2024</a></blockquote>
The conversation then turned to Trump and Fauci&#8217;s tenure in the White House, beginning with Sunny Hostin saying that she blamed Trump for the fact that her in-laws died of COVID.
&#8220;We remember those pandemic briefings,&#8221; Hostin said. &#8220;I remember the injection of bleach perhaps, hydroxychloroquin, dangerous recommendations. You were particularly disturbed, I read, by his refusal to wear a mask.&#8221;
Fauci claimed that a number of Trump&#8217;s allies had believed he was only disagreeing with Trump on COVID policies because he had some &#8220;antipathy&#8221; toward the president — which he denied.
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The View didn&#8217;t press Fauci on how the policies he pushed harmed a generation of kids and denied people the freedom of chose to not put things in their bodies; among other things. 
Instead, they tee him up to claim the real problem was the people who didn&#8217;t obey. <a href="https://t.co/kl0eir8bBh">pic.twitter.com/kl0eir8bBh</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1803817134125981871?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2024</a></blockquote>
The show concluded with all of the hosts thanking Fauci for his service as he complained that people had failed to listen to his recommendations because they were too busy fighting over politics.

Dr. Fauci Testifies In House On COVID Origins

Fauci On ‘The View’: Joins The Ladies Bashing Trump, Calls Detractors ‘Bastards’

Fauci On 'The View': Joins The Ladies Bashing Trump, Calls Detractors 'Bastards'

Mask Mandate

The View

Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged on Tuesday that shuttering schools for months during the COVID pandemic was a &#8220;mistake,&#8221; a reversal for the former presidential chief medical advisor who became influential in the nation&#8217;s response to the malady.
Fauci, 83, was one of the lead members of both the Trump and Biden administrations&#8217; White House COVID teams and frequently appeared beside former President Donald Trump at briefings. The immunologist also led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the first two years of the pandemic.
Fauci made the admission <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqxazNlHp8Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener">during</a> an interview on CBS Mornings, saying that while the initial school closures were the right decision, keeping kids out of the classroom for so long was a mistake.
&#8220;I think what was not a mistake was the actual closure, because when we had a shutdown that 15 day to flatten the curve, we were in a tsunami of cases. Right here in New York, you had freezer trucks in front of Elmhurst Hospital,&#8221; Fauci said.
Fauci said that &#8220;shutting down everything immediately &#8230; even schools was the right thing.&#8221;
&#8220;How long you kept it was the problem because there was a disparity throughout the country,&#8221; he said.
Fauci also defended his own record, saying he urged states and counties to &#8220;close the bars, open the schools, open the schools as quickly and as safely as you possibly can.&#8221;
&#8220;But initially to close it down was correct,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Keeping it for a year was not a good idea.&#8221;
&#8220;So that was a mistake in retrospect? We will not repeat it?&#8221; the CBS anchor asked.
&#8220;Absolutely, yeah,&#8221; Fauci responded.
Previously, Fauci had warned that school shutdowns may be necessary, even ones that would last for months.
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/JudyWoodruff?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JudyWoodruff</a>: Are we looking at many months of virtual learning before schools can safely open nationwide?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: &quot;In some places, Judy, that may be the case.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/fVgss0y4ol">pic.twitter.com/fVgss0y4ol</a>
&mdash; PBS News (@NewsHour) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsHour/status/1294034260727402502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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8/4/20 Fauci on schools: 
&quot;There may be some areas where the level of virus is so high that it would not be prudent to bring children back to school.&quot;
In clip, he endorses Zoom education &amp; school closures in areas w/ COVID transmission. Fauci has never been for full reopening. <a href="https://t.co/eORstr2Lf8">pic.twitter.com/eORstr2Lf8</a>
&mdash; Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1333428269002203138?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In August 2020, Fauci was asked by PBS NewsHour&#8217;s Judy Woodruff whether the country was facing &#8220;many months of virtual learning&#8221; before schools could safely open nationwide.
&#8220;In some places, Judy, that may be the case,&#8221; Fauci responded. &#8220;If you want your schools to open, get your community level down, down to a safe level.&#8221;
Also that month, Fauci said, &#8220;There may be some areas that the level of the virus is so high that it would not be prudent to bring the children back to school.&#8221;
School lockdowns <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teachers-union-exec-suggests-learning-loss-made-us-all-equal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">caused</a> massive learning loss across the country among K-12 students in public schools.
In 2022, eighth graders had the lowest U.S. history scores on record and among the lowest civics scores, according to the Department of Education. Only about 13% of eighth graders met proficiency <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">standards</a> for U.S. history last year, and only about <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a fifth</a> of students were proficient or better in civics.
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Math and reading scores have also suffered over the pandemic, according to the department. Math scores <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/math-scores-dropped-in-every-state-during-pandemic-report-card-shows-11666584062?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted</a> among fourth and eighth graders in almost every state, and reading scores have also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-fourth-graders-cant-read-one-phoenix-school-has-a-new-way-to-fight-pandemic-learning-loss-11633818431?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sunk across</a> the country, erasing the last three decades of progress.
Many students returned to classrooms last year reading at the same level as when the pandemic started, putting them two grade levels behind. One study last year <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/30/health/covid-learning-loss-study-wellness/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggested</a> that students lost about 35% of a typical school year’s worth of learning, starting when remote learning began.
In early 2021, a CDC study <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/01/26/stats-show-in-person-classes-dont-spread-covid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> &#8220;little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.&#8221;
However, many schools remained closed for the remainder of that year thanks to teachers unions, which fought against reopening.
Learning loss caused by many months of remote learning spurred parents across the nation to demand schools return to in-person learning, especially after data showed that children were at low risk for serious cases of COVID.
Some parents even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-moms-and-dads-taking-over-school-boards-across-the-country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ran for school board</a> positions and won, hoping to stop the learning loss in their communities.

Fauci Admits Closing Schools For Months During Pandemic Was A ‘Mistake’

Fauci Admits Closing Schools For Months During Pandemic Was A 'Mistake'

Fauci

Public Schools

Remote Learning

School Shutdowns

Former President Donald Trump&#8217;s CDC Director warned during an interview over the weekend that he is becoming increasingly concerned about a deadly bird flu pandemic erupting that will likely have a high mortality rate.
Dr. Robert Redfield said during an interview with NewsNation that he believes it&#8217;s a matter of &#8220;when&#8221; and not &#8220;if&#8221; there will be a bird flu pandemic in humans.
&#8220;Unfortunately, bird flu, when it does enter humans, has a significant mortality, probably somewhere between 25%-50% mortality,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So it&#8217;s going to be quite complicated. Since 2019, we&#8217;ve had a progressive increase in bird flu in chickens and ducks and turkeys in our country. And since then, you&#8217;ve seen it now go into a number of mammals. It&#8217;s now in 27 mammals in the United States.&#8221;
Addressing why it&#8217;s important to note the the disease is spreading to other mammals, he said: &#8220;We know exactly what has to happen for bird flu to be infectious for humans and go human-to-human. Scientists in 2012 actually did experiments in the lab using gain of function research, which I&#8217;m not in favor of, but the scientists did it. And they figured the five amino acids that have to change in the key receptor in order for bird flu, to gain a propensity to bind to the human receptor, and then be able to go human-to-human, something that obviously happened with COVID, where COVID, obviously, learned how to use the H2 receptor in humans and of course, became a very infectious virus.&#8221;
He said that bird flu will be transmitted from person to person &#8220;through aerosols and droplets&#8221;. He said that he is worried that a pandemic will happen because the virus will become contagious because of lab experiments.
&#8220;Normally, the five amino acid changes is a huge, huge species barrier,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So who knows how long that will take but as it goes into more and more different mammals, it&#8217;s changing, its use of receptors, it&#8217;s changing, it&#8217;s learning to how to use different receptors for dolphins and seals. And it&#8217;s learning how to use receptors in bears and polar bears and foxes and raccoons and cats. So it&#8217;s going through a lot of changes and it&#8217;s, as it picks up some of these new receptors, it can get closer and closer to humans.&#8221;
He said that he was concerned about the virus spreading to cattle because cattle are often in close proximity to pigs and viruses jump easily from pigs to humans.
&#8220;I&#8217;m less concerned, though, that this will happen through spillover and evolution in animals,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m much more concerned that this will happen in the laboratory, through gain of functional research. I can create this virus, literally in weeks to months by using gain of function research. I know exactly what amino acids I have to change because in 2012, against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them. So the recipe for how to make bird flu highly infectious for humans is already out there. All you have to do is look at it.&#8221;
WATCH:
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House Oversight And Reform Committee Holds Hearing On Government’s Preparedness And Response To Coronavirus

Trump’s CDC Director: Gain Of Function Research Will Cause Bird Flu Pandemic With 25-50% Mortality Rate

Robert Redfield

Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical advisor to the president, could not recall a scientific study supporting the masking of children prior to the widespread masking of children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and was influential in the U.S. response to COVID-19, first advising former president Donald Trump, then President Joe Biden. Republicans have grown increasingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/marco-rubio-accuses-dr-fauci-of-lying-about-masks-distorting-herd-immunity-estimates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">critical</a> of Fauci for misleading the American people over the risks of COVID-19 and other issues.
The former top health official testified on the U.S. response to COVID-19 in a closed-door meeting with members of the select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic in January. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which oversees the subcommittee’s work, <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-select-subcommittee-releases-dr-faucis-transcript-highlights-key-takeaways-in-new-memo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> transcripts of Fauci’s testimony on Friday. Fauci is expected to return to Capitol Hill on Monday to testify publicly in front of Congress.
During the closed-door testimony in January, Republicans asked Fauci about the scientific support for masking children before masking policies were adopted widely during the pandemic. Fauci, though he hedged his answer, failed to provide a specific example of a study he viewed supporting child masking. He suggested that he may not have looked at any data at all.
“Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?” GOP counsel asked, according to the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Fauci-Part-2-Transcript.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transcript</a>.
Fauci responded, “You know, I might have, Mitch, but I don’t recall specifically that I did. I might have.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/1-the-trial-run">WATCH FREE EPISODE NOW: Fauci Unmasked: The Trial Run</a>
The counsel then pointed to studies and data from the pandemic that suggest masking harmed child development and education.
“There’s been a lot of studies that have come out since the pandemic started, but specifically on this there have been significant on, kind of like the learning loss and speech and development issues that have been associated with particularly young children wearing masks while they’re growing up. They can’t see their teacher talk and can’t learn how to form words. Have you followed any of those studies?” the counsel asked.
“No,” Fauci answered. He went on to say he believes the scientific data on child masking is still mixed.
“I believe that there are a lot of conflicting studies too, that there are those that say, yes, there is an impact, and there are those that say there’s not. I still think that’s up in the air,” he said. “I mean, I&#8217;m very sensitive to children. I have children and I have grandchildren. So, I don&#8217;t want to have anything that would do to harm them [sic]. But I think that there was a conflicting discussion about the negative impact on speech and formation of the bones of the face, and that I think was debunked pretty easily.”

Fauci Can’t Name One Study To Support Child Masking Before Pandemic

Washington D.C.

From the perspective of the people running the government and the various public health authorities, one of the absolute worst things you can possibly do is remember what they told you five minutes ago. Particularly if you keep track of the most alarming things they say, then it&#8217;s very easy to realize that pretty much none of it is true.
Just four years ago, for instance, we were told repeatedly that COVID-19 was a &#8220;once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.&#8221; The United Nations still has an <a href="https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/all-hands-deck-fight-once-lifetime-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> on its website that makes that exact declaration. It&#8217;s called, &#8220;All hands on deck to fight a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.&#8221; It wasn&#8217;t written by some intern; the author was the U.N.&#8217;s Secretary-General. And he wasn&#8217;t the only one saying that, various peer-reviewed <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7171815/#:~:text=COVID%2D19%20is%2C%20undoubtedly%2C,an%20unprecedented%20global%20health%20crisis." target="_blank" rel="noopener">papers</a> promoted by the N.I.H. made the same claim. So did the White House, where Jenn Psaki <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/11/23/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-energy-jennifer-granholm-november-23-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">insisted</a> during a press briefing that COVID was a, &#8220;once-in-a-century pandemic.&#8221;
All those pronouncements didn&#8217;t last long. We&#8217;re now less than six months away from another presidential election, and just in time, there&#8217;s a new &#8220;once-in-a-lifetime pandemic&#8221; on the horizon. Along with nationwide civil disorder, we&#8217;re getting another pathogen.
In fact, we&#8217;re told that this pandemic is going to be much deadlier than the last one. So all the old predictions were way off. It turns out COVID was a &#8220;twice-in-a-lifetime pandemic,&#8221; I guess.
Here&#8217;s the New York Post to explain:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Bird Flu Pandemic" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GIGZi133oOU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
The reporter from the New York Post opens her report by saying that the bird flu could be &#8220;100 times worse&#8221; than COVID. But she doesn&#8217;t explain how she&#8217;s coming up with that number.
Later on in the video, she says that 52% of humans who have contracted bird flu since 2003 have died, while COVID only kills 0.1% of people it infects. That makes bird flu sound even more serious than &#8220;100 times&#8221; more dangerous. But it&#8217;s also using very old data. So the question remains: where exactly is the idea that bird flu could be &#8220;100 times worse than COVID&#8221; coming from?
If you dig around the New York Post&#8217;s article, you&#8217;ll find <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/04/us-news/bird-flu-pandemic-could-be-100-times-worse-than-covid-scientists-warn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this explanation</a>: 
<blockquote>John Fulton, a pharmaceutical industry consultant for vaccines and the founder of Canada-based BioNiagara &#8230; also expressed his concerns. &#8216;This appears to be 100 times worse than COVID — or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate,&#8217; he said. &#8216;Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops.&#8217;</blockquote>
This is worse — or it could be. This is something — actually it’s not that thing, but it could be. Now, the Post is quoting from a Daily Mail interview, in which Fulton also <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12015805/Fresh-pandemic-fears-virologists-discover-bird-flu-spreads-efficiently-ferrets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says</a>, 
<blockquote>This discovery is very concerning, and governments should take immediate action by seeking out and mobilizing all high-potential production capacity for vaccines and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of avian influenza H5N1. &#8230;&#8217;We need to sound the alarm bells to wake up our governments to the fact that there is a virus that is undergoing mutations that would/ could eventually allow it to become highly transmissible in human (mammals).</blockquote>
So, a guy named John Fulton says that if the bird flu mutates to spread easily among humans, then it could be 100 times worse than COVID. He says this is all very disturbing, and we need the government to help create (and presumably fund) more &#8220;vaccines and therapeutics.” The next time you get your COVID booster — if you’re one of the four people still doing that — you should make room on your arm for the Bird Flu vax. That’s the idea. Because of this quote, various news outlets, including the Post, have said that &#8220;experts&#8221; are warning about the existential threat posed by bird flu. And this guy is the primary source of this claim, as far as I can tell.
But John Fulton is not an expert in anything. According to his LinkedIn, he&#8217;s got a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrfulton/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_campaign=share_via&amp;utm_content=profile&amp;utm_medium=ios_app" target="_blank" rel="noopener">degree</a> in &#8220;corporate communications&#8221; from something called &#8220;Brock University&#8221; in Canada. He lists &#8220;social media&#8221; as one of his skills. So his qualifications are that he can use Instagram and Facebook. Essentially, he&#8217;s a salesman. And he currently consults on the side for something called &#8220;POP Biotechnologies,&#8221; which says on its website that it, &#8220;develops revolutionary therapies that expand treatment possibilities in cancer care and infectious disease prevention.&#8221; 
Where have we seen this before? When have we seen fake &#8220;experts&#8221; pretending to know what they talk about, as they raise the alarm about some catastrophic public health emergency — without disclosing their obvious conflicts of interest? 
It&#8217;s actually hard to believe the media is being this flagrant about the narrative this time. They&#8217;re not even getting a scientist to scare everyone. If you wanted to deliberately undermine people&#8217;s trust in public health — more than it&#8217;s already been undermined — then it&#8217;s hard to think of what you&#8217;d do differently. You&#8217;d do exactly what the media is doing now: You&#8217;d find some &#8220;social media expert&#8221; and get him to say something outrageous and terrifying, and then you&#8217;d pretend he knows what he&#8217;s talking about.
To be clear, I&#8217;m not saying that bird flu, or H5N1, definitely isn&#8217;t a threat. I&#8217;m not an expert on the topic anymore than John Fulton is. We&#8217;re both just guys giving our opinion. Unlike John Fulton, I&#8217;m happy to admit that.
What I am saying is that, right now — according to all of the available evidence we have — there&#8217;s no sign that the bird flu is any kind of significant threat to the public, or worthy of any real concern, or any of the blaring headlines it’s getting. There&#8217;s no evidence that it&#8217;s spreading between humans. There&#8217;s one farm worker somewhere who’s supposedly currently infected, and that&#8217;s it, as of now. The commercial milk and dairy supply is safe, according to a recent <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> of hundreds of random samples. And this tracks with how bird flu has behaved for decades; it <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/inhumans.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">typically</a> doesn&#8217;t infect people at all. There are no real signs that&#8217;s changing.
But here&#8217;s the key point. If that does change — if bird flu suddenly becomes infectious and starts killing humans, which could theoretically happen, because anything could happen — then there is no doubt about one thing: It will be a far deadlier pandemic than it would have been, if the public health establishment hadn&#8217;t lied to us for years about COVID. Public health authorities proved with COVID that we can’t trust anything they say. If there&#8217;s another &#8220;once in a lifetime pandemic” — an actual, real one — we&#8217;ll have no choice but to ignore them, or at best take them with a massive grain of salt. 
And of course, in turn, that will provide them with the pretense to use even more force than last time. In a way, their own flagrant untrustworthiness becomes a benefit to them. It guarantees we will defy them — because what other choice do we have? — which gives them the excuse to be authoritarians.
A year ago, the head of the World Health Organization delivered a speech about the &#8220;next pandemic,&#8221; which he said was inevitable. He made it clear that he understands very well that people will be hesitant to ever obey public health officials again. So to counteract that hesitancy — and to ensure &#8220;equity&#8221; — the head of the WHO insisted on &#8220;changes&#8221; that, &#8220;must be made.&#8221; Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 WHO Warns Of Next Pandemic" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CRa6EYJpYOQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;When the next pandemic comes knocking — and it will — we must be ready to answer decisively, collectively and equitably. And for enhanced international cooperation,&#8221; he says. There needs to be a &#8220;pandemic accord&#8221; to ensure that &#8220;the old cycle of panic and neglect&#8221; never happens again. Instead, he says, we need a &#8220;shared response&#8221; — directed, of course, by the WHO.
If you go and look up the &#8220;pandemic accord&#8221; on the WHO&#8217;s <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/pandemic-prevention--preparedness-and-response-accord" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, you&#8217;ll find that it&#8217;s intended to, &#8220;support global coordination through a stronger WHO.&#8221; Additionally, &#8220;At the heart of the proposed accord is the need to ensure equity in both access to the tools needed to prevent pandemics (including technologies like vaccines, personal protective equipment, information and expertise) and access to health care for all people.&#8221; 
If you&#8217;re a white guy, that&#8217;s all very bad news — especially if the extremely unlikely scenario really does play out where the bird flu somehow mutates and starts infecting people&#8217;s lungs. If they ever develop any treatment that works and won’t make you even sicker, you&#8217;re guaranteed to be last on the list. In any event, there&#8217;s no point in fretting about whether there will be another COVID-style pandemic, the WHO is saying. It&#8217;s inevitable.
This is a very far cry from the old lines we heard about how COVID was a &#8220;once in a century&#8221; or &#8220;once-in-a-lifetime&#8221; pandemic. The moment they realized COVID was over, the public health establishment stopped pretending that it was a rare event. Instead, they immediately got to work on preparing for the next pandemic. And already, with another presidential election rapidly approaching, some of the least impartial and least qualified people in the country desperately want us to believe that it is about to arrive.

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The 'Experts' Push Bird Flu As The Next Pandemic — Just In Time For The Election

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Matt Walsh

Opinion

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