Reporter confronts Jean-Pierre on branding people ‘conspiracy theorists’ over lab leak theory

Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich put White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on the hot seat during a press briefing on Monday, grilling her over branding those who believed from the beginning that COVID came from a lab leak in China as “conspiracy theorists.”

On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Energy now believes that the pandemic originated from a lab leak in China, “according to a classified intelligence report.” This comes out after years of the Biden administration and the left calling anyone who claimed that was the case a “conspiracy theorist.” Now that they have been vindicated on the issue, the White House is backpedaling and is appearing to be making an attempt at revisionism on the subject.

“There was not so long ago a point where anyone asking the question of whether a lab leak was a credible theory that should be looked into — A lot of those people were derided as fringe, you know, conspiracy theorists,” Heinrich said, confronting Jean-Pierre on the subject.

“So are there lessons learned? You know, looking back about how we discuss theories when we don’t have all of the answers,” Heinrich asked the press secretary.

(Video Credit: NBC News)

“Here’s what I can tell you is the president’s commitment to getting to the bottom of this, right? That is what’s the most important so that we can share this with Congress, we can share this with the American people,” Jean-Pierre said after vigorously defending Dr. Anthony Fauci over his assertions that the virus came from outside the Wuhan lab.

“And right now there is no consensus. There is no consensus. You heard this from Jake Sullivan yesterday. You heard this from my colleague just moments ago. And we are going to do everything that we can. The president is asking his team to do everything that they can to figure out where it originated because of what could potentially happen next because of the potential of having another pandemic,” Jean-Pierre stated, attempting to make it seem as though President Biden believed the virus could have potentially come from a lab leak.

“And I think that’s what’s most important,” she repeated.

As Jean-Pierre was dancing around the issue, an MSNBC host took to Twitter to rail that the suppression of the origin of the virus was actually the fault of the “conspiracy theorists.”

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan brazenly blamed “the right” on Twitter for squelching the origins of the virus.

Election analyst Nate Silver tweeted in response to the Wall Street Journal’s report on Sunday, “Welp. The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I’ll never forget. A huge disservice to science and public health. They should be profoundly embarrassed.”

Hasan unbelievably responded, “The simple reason why so many people weren’t keen to discuss the ‘lab leak’ *theory* is because it was originally conflated by the right with ‘Chinese bio weapon’ conspiracies and continues to be conflated by the right with anti-Fauci conspiracies. Blame the conspiracy theorists.”

Scientists are now coming forward and revealing that although the lab leak theory was always considered a possibility, many were prevented from attempting to research the possibility. The left claimed the theory that COVID came from a lab was debunked and labeled it as racist misinformation. But Hasan did all he could to twist those facts and blame the right instead.

“It’s hard to have a good faith disagreement about a major issue if the issue itself has been hijacked by bad faith folks,” Hassan asserted.

“Incidentally, some of us did try and host good faith debates on the ‘lab leak’ theory, even back in 2021,” he claimed.

Then he doubled down on blaming those who believed the lab leak theory while claiming that even though it has been validated by a government agency, the majority of scientists still believe the virus came from a Chinese wet market.

“Also: ask yourself why so many people on the right, lay people, were obsessed with this one specific aspect of the science of Covid, which by the view is still not the majority view amongst scientists? Was it because of their scientific curiosity? Lol,” Hasan sneered.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Hasan kept digging his hole deeper on the issue.

“Loads of rightwing and centrist non-scientist dudes on this site have now convinced themselves that the lab leak theory wasn’t just ‘suppressed’ but is also ‘the most likely factual explanation of the origin’ of Covid – when most scientists don’t think that’s the case at all!” Hasan chastised one user on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1630247415264731136

He railed at another user, “It was dismissed – and continues to be dismissed – because there was no hard evidence for it, and there still isn’t!, and because it has always been part of broader rightwing conspiracies – including the online hysteria and faux outrage right now!”

In a separate thread, he proclaimed that the real scandal involved efforts to undermine masks and vaccinations.

“Millions dead from Covid, many of which could have been prevented by masks and/or vaccines. Same folks who refused to endorse either, and don’t want to talk about the ongoing death toll, are now whining about whether the coronavirus leaked from a lab or came from a wet market,” Hasan charged.

“Sure it could have come from a lab, even though most scientists/studies say otherwise. But hey, fine. It came from a lab. Now what? How does that help boost our abysmally low vaccination and booster rates? How does that help us hold Trump to account for dropping the ball in 2020?” he asked, predictably getting around to blaming former President Trump.

The attempt to provide cover for the left concerning the origins of COVID has become all-consuming for the media and the Biden administration evidently. The spin machine is trying in vain to pin the blame on the right but whitewashing the history of the pandemic is unlikely to gain any traction with the American people at this point.

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