Ex-CNN chief Jeff Zucker considered lab leak theory a ‘Trump talking point’, ordered staff to steer clear

The propagandists’ mantra to “trust the experts” was caught in the throes of a long overdue reality check after a report on the COVID lab leak theory cascaded like dominoes into a corporate media insider’s reveal about how their network executive allegedly told them to cover the story.

Like everything with then-President Donald Trump, there seemed to be nothing the commander-in-chief could do that wasn’t maligned by “fake news.” This was especially true of the COVID response where prominent Democrats knocked the jab under his watch before embracing boosters forever under his successor, and any mention of China was considered wholly xenophobic.

Now, it seems, days after the Department of Energy reported that they agree with the FBI that the virus most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, the true extent of how that story was suppressed is coming out and, as one CNN insider told Fox News Digital, that included then-CNN president Jeff Zucker ordering his network to stay clear of investigating.

Zucker considered the lab-leak story to be a “Trump talking point,” according to an inside source, Fox reported. He also appeared to take an ignorance is-bliss approach in order to maintain the anti-Trump slant of the network.

“People are slowly waking up from the fog,” the insider went on about taking an earnest look at the COVID response. “It is kind of crazy that we didn’t chase it harder.”

Looking back at some of the reporting from the early days of COVID, on March 28, 2020, CNN’s Oliver Darcy had taken aim at “conspiracy theories” under the headline, “Here’s how to debunk coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories from friends and family.”

“While the coronavirus pandemic has isolated family and friends inside their homes, it has in many cases increased online or over-the-phone communication with loved ones,” he wrote before warning, “But, in some cases, relatives and friends share poor information — whether it is bad science related to how to prevent the virus, debunked rumors about cities being put on lockdown, or conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19. While any strain of misinformation is not ideal, misinformation related to public health crisis has an especially dangerous element to it.”

Likewise, on Feb. 18, 2020, under CNN’s “Facts First” banner,  the network suggested “it’s possible, yet unlikely, that the lab was connected to the start of the outbreak,” and in April 2020 they reported, “Its origin is up for debate, but it wasn’t made in a lab. There’s still much we don’t know about the coronavirus pandemic, but virus experts agree on one piece of its origin story: The virus likely originated in a bat, not in a Chinese lab.”

One of the most telling statements came on May 5, 2020, when Chris Cillizza had argued setting Trump against the then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci, “Now before we play the game of ‘he said, he said’ remember this: Only one of these two people is a world-renowned infectious disease expert. And it’s not Donald Trump.”

“In short, Fauci’s view on the origins of the disease matters a whole lot more than Trump’s opinion about where it came from. Especially because, outside of Trump and his immediate inner circle, most people in a position to know are very, very skeptical of the Trump narrative that the virus came out of a lab — whether accidentally or on purpose,” Cillizza noted.

As it happened, Sunday the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released evidence ahead of their Wednesday hearing showing how the corporate media’s illustrious Fauci, the darling of the Sunday shows and coronavirus press briefings, had himself been behind the effort to disprove the lab leak theory that he helped suppress.

“New evidence released by the Select Subcommittee today suggests that Dr. Fauci ‘prompted’ the drafting of a publication that would ‘disprove’ the lab leak theory, the authors of this paper skewed available evidence to achieve that goal,” the memo stated in part.

It remains to be seen what, if any, consequences will be faced by those responsible for suppressing the facts about COVID and for using the controlled narrative to enforce draconian mandates on the populous.

Kevin Haggerty

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