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\"QUESTION: <\/strong>They\u2019re telling us to mind our own business; that\u2019s what China is telling us. Let\u2019s bring in Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State. Good morning to you.<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO: <\/strong>Ainsley, it\u2019s great to be with you this morning.<\/p>\n QUESTION: <\/strong>Can you believe that? They\u2019re telling us to mind our own business, that we\u2019re lying through our teeth. Meanwhile we have almost 60,000 people dead, so many people out of work, and they\u2019re telling us to mind our own business. How are we going to \u2013 how are we going to fire back? What are we going to do to hold them accountable?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO: <\/strong>So Ainsley, this very much is our own business. I was talking with some friends back in Kansas \u2013 I\u2019m sure Steve knows some of them \u2013 they\u2019ve been impacted by this in ways that are going to fundamentally change their lives over the course of the next several months. They\u2019re trying to figure their way out of this. What the Chinese Communist Party did here, in not preventing the spread of this around the world, they are responsible for. America needs to hold them accountable. I\u2019ve been heartened to see Australia, other countries joining this, demanding an investigation, because while we know this started in Wuhan, China, we don\u2019t yet know from where it started.<\/p>\n And in spite of our best efforts to get experts on the ground, they continue to try and hide and obfuscate. That\u2019s wrong, it continues to pose a threat to the world, and we all need to get to the bottom of what actually happened here, not only for the current instant but to make sure something like this doesn\u2019t happen again. There are still many labs operating inside of China today, and the world needs to know that we\u2019re not going to see a repeat of this in the days and weeks and months ahead.<\/p>\n QUESTION: <\/strong>Well, if it did come from the wet markets it will come again because they are back. I\u2019ve seen the video. You know more than I\u2019ll ever know. They are back, so they haven\u2019t learned their lesson. Either that or it came from the Wuhan laboratory and they\u2019re lying again. Here\u2019s what China said when the criticism starts coming out of America where we are to them: \u201cWe advise American politicians to reflect on their own problems and try their best to control the epidemic as soon as possible, instead of continuing to play tricks to deflect blame.\u201d Can you read between the lines for us?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO: <\/strong>Yeah, they know that this happened in their country. This is classic communist disinformation. This is what communists do. The Chinese people were harmed by this too. The Chinese Communist Party \u2013 we know there were journalists that were kicked out. We know that there were doctors that tried to tell this story, and instead they were pushed aside, covered up, taken out of the news. Those are the kind of things that communist institutions do. We all know them from the Soviet days. We know the kinds of things that communist parties do to try and manage information inside of their own country and around the world.<\/p>\n And so we see these efforts \u2013 I saw a foreign ministry official this morning on TV trying to change this narrative. We know that this virus started in Wuhan, China. We now have \u2013 the Chinese Communist party now has a responsibility to tell the world how this pandemic got out of China and all across the world, causing such global economic devastation.<\/p>\n QUESTION: <\/strong>Yeah, I mean, if we would have known earlier, things could be a lot different. There\u2019s a story in the New York Post<\/em> that apparently Dr. Fauci\u2019s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shelled out a total of $7.4 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, which has become the center of theories about the origin of COVID. And also, Mr. Secretary, I understand that apparently Democratic senators have written a letter to you \u2013 they want to see some cables, any or all cables that the State Department might have regarding this as well. What can you tell us about what\u2019s going on behind the scenes at that federal level?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO: <\/strong>So I can\u2019t \u2013 I don\u2019t know the details of the NIH grants. I do know a bit about the cables. We\u2019ll do our best to respond to those two senators. Look, the United States, for a long time and continuing today, tries to help countries around the world who are conducting research on highly contagious pathogens. We do this not only in China, but we try to bring our expertise from our National Institutes of Health, from our CDC, to precisely prevent something like this. That\u2019s the reason that we spend American taxpayer dollars is to protect American people from labs that aren\u2019t up to standard. I can tell you there are \u2013 were real concerns about the labs inside of China, and I have to say I\u2019m still concerned that the Chinese Communist Party is not telling us about all of what\u2019s taking place in all of the labs, in fact each of the labs, all across China today.<\/p>\n QUESTION: <\/strong>Yeah, pretty scary. What\u2019s happening in North Korea? What\u2019s the latest there? Any sightings of Kim Jong-un?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO: <\/strong>Ainsley, not much to add to what the President said yesterday. We haven\u2019t seen him. We don\u2019t have any information to report today. We\u2019re watching it closely, keeping track of what\u2019s going on, not only around Chairman Kim himself but more broadly inside of North Korea. They also have the risk of COVID there and there is a real risk that there will be a famine, a food shortage inside of North Korea too. We\u2019re watching each of those things closely, as they have a real impact on our mission set, which is to ultimately denuclearize North Korea. [...]<\/p> QUESTION:<\/strong> Yeah, which countries that experienced this before our country did \u2013 which ones are you watching to see how they reopen their businesses and they get back to work?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO:<\/strong> We\u2019re watching a number of countries. We\u2019re watching how Singapore handles it, although they\u2019ve had a resurgence in cases in their country as well. South Korea, too, had some success at the front end and now they\u2019re trying to maintain that. We\u2019re watching each of them to see how not only they\u2019re doing it inside of their own country, but these are countries that often buy products from American companies \u2013 we want to make sure that they get their markets back open, and that American products and American jobs return here in our country as well.<\/p>\n QUESTION:<\/strong> For the longest time, the State Department would dance on the edges of what \u2013 should we be tight with China, not tight with China? They make things so cheap and they make things also that are cheap, and a lot of times they break and \u2013 ineffective. But for the first time in all of our lifetime, the world has been poisoned by this country, and there\u2019s only one way to point \u2013 is to China. As Secretary of State, do you have a unique opportunity to unite the world and open up their eyes to the type of regime this is, and is there a plan in place with the nine months or four and a half years you have left to neutralize this superpower?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO:<\/strong> Brian, you\u2019ve hit it square on the head. I think President Trump said it clearly himself as well. The threat, the risk, the danger, and now the harm that the Chinese Communist Party has imposed not only on the United States but all around the world. We not only have an opportunity, we have an obligation to get this right, to unite the freedom-loving nations, likeminded countries around the world, to make sure that it is not a communist regime that controls our infrastructure. We\u2019ve talked about this with you all with Huawei, our telecommunications infrastructure. We know what this needs to look like and the United States has an obligation to get this right. We\u2019ll do this to make sure that we keep the American people safe and get our economy back on its feet, and continue to make America the most prosperous, wonderful, great nation in the history of civilization.<\/p>\n QUESTION:<\/strong> Mr. Secretary, I think before this COVID crisis struck, I think the conventional wisdom was that the President was going to be able to broker a trade deal with China maybe just five minutes before the election, or whatever. It would just be one of those things that he would be able to say, look, I was able to do a deal with China. Right now, the politics are very complicated, and given the fact that China has done what they have done, not being forthcoming with this epidemic, it probably doesn\u2019t look too good for a deal, does it?<\/p>\n SECRETARY POMPEO:<\/strong> So, Steve, look, we\u2019ve got \u2013 this is the conundrum. We\u2019ve got the phase one trade deal. China continues to make promises and says they\u2019ll live up to it. I hope that they do. We have every expectation today that they will. It\u2019s certainly what they had agreed to. But we\u2019ve watched China now break repeated promises. They say they\u2019re transparent, they say they want to be open, they say they want to join the community of nations, and then we watched them in this crisis behave in ways that are just the opposite of that. I hope we can find a way to have commercial relationships with them where it makes sense for America and American businesses, but President Trump has, from the beginning, said we need fair and reciprocal trade with China, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s going to continue to demand.\"<\/p>",
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