CBS’s 60 Minutes misled the public about comments made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during an ABC News interview. They claimed Pompeo pushed a debunked theory that the Wuhan virus was manmade despite the administration claiming otherwise.
During Pompeo’s interview from last Sunday, he was asked about the virus being manmade.
There was a brief second at 05:51 when he said it was manmade but it was a slip of the tongue, quickly corrected when the host questioned him further:
Watch how 60 minutes deliberately takes Pompeo out of context at 08:21 on the mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=501&v=iHaeCNPxZ6M&feature=emb_logo
Scott Pelley, the narrator of the segment, blatantly lied and took the brief moment when he accidentally misspoke — which he obviously didn’t mean — to say he’s saying the virus is human-engineered. Then he equated that with saying it leaked from a lab by mistake. They are two different issues. Pelley wants to confuse the viewer here.
President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo clearly said it is not man-made but likely leaked by accident from the Wuhan lab.
Secretary of State Pompeo has said there is a “significant amount of evidence” that it leaked from the Wuhan laboratory.
The segment was so egregious that the spokesperson for the State Department slammed 60 minutes for their false portrayal of Pompeo’s comments.
REPORT FILLED WITH MANY EGREGIOUS ERRORS
Government officials are also criticizing the many false and misleading statements in the segment.
The segment begins by falsely suggesting that the United States federal government has “been less than honest” about the coronavirus pandemic just like the Chinese Communist Party.
China silenced doctors and journalists who tried to warn the world. They shut down the lab where the coronavirus genome was first shared, hiding vital information from the world. The Chinese Communists repeatedly lied about its transmissibility from human-to-human. They’ve spread outrageous propaganda and lied about the extent of the outbreak in their country. The culprits even blamed the U.S. military for spreading the virus. The Chinese Communists refused to allow the CDC or WHO into the country to study the outbreak and the virus.
In no way has the U.S. or any country acted so egregiously.
Pelley spoke with scientist Peter Daszak, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance. The company looks for pandemics to be.
They are featured in the segment because the Trump administration recently cut funding to them after reports surfaced that found that the U.S. government was giving money in the form of a multi-million dollar grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Pelley made it look like a comment by Matt Gaetz, that was partly incorrect, was the reason for the funding cut. It was not.
“60 Minutes” claimed in its title and in a tweet that the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to EcoHealth Alliance “jeopardiz[es] possible COVID-19 cure.”
As soon as the Chinese lab published the sequence of the virus in early January, the CDC began working on a vaccine.
Eco-Health is a private company and doesn’t need U.S. funding.
Pelley praised the Wuhan Institute of Virology, saying that it was “internationally respected” and that State Department cables sent to Washington, D.C., in 2018 said that the lab was “critical to future… outbreak prediction and prevention.”
However, there were warnings about the lab in cables that Pelley ignored.
Pelley later said U.S. testing failed, but the U.S. has conducted more tests than any other country.
Pelley promoted Chinese communist propaganda by claiming that the U.S. has “led the world in illness and death.” The U.S. has the most confirmed cases because it has done by far the most testing and because it is honestly reporting the cases.
The entire segment was false and meant to convey a dishonest message. Since they didn’t have the facts, they just manufactured them.
Pelley might as well be on the Chinese payroll. Maybe he is, along with his network.
Subscribe to the Daily Newsletter
wpDiscuz
