Pompeo to CBN News: China Must Be Held Accountable for 'Nasty' Campaign to Deceive the World on COVID-19

With an invisible virus that has engulfed the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has his hands full. First and foremost: getting answers from China. Are they telling the truth about the origin of the virus? If not, what else might they be hiding? 

“It's incredibly important, even as we sit here today that we get to the bottom of what transpired and that the Chinese Communist Party come clean about how this all began,” Pompeo tells CBN News. 

“We know it started in Wuhan, China. That's the origination of the virus. We need to figure out how it happened. It's not just about political retribution or accountability. It's important today. We need to know this so we can save lives going forward. We need our scientists, our academics and our epidemiologists all to have access to the data, access to a sample of the virus, access to the places that might have come to. Those are all things that matter so that we can solve this problem, get our country back to work and save lives.” 

Secretary Pompeo says it doesn’t help matters when countries like China, Russia, and Iran are all pushing bogus theories about how the virus started, such as it coming from US troops or an American bioweapon being used for political purposes. It begs the question: Is this a coordinated effort? 

“Boy, it's hard to know the answer to that,” says Pompeo. “But you can say they're observing what the others are doing and then they're responding in a group. That is, they're taking information being provided by one, and others are promoting it online and elsewhere too. This disinformation campaign matters. The American people, people all across the world go-to sources to get information, information for their safety, information for their health and that of their family members. It is nasty when the government runs a disinformation campaign that puts those people's lives at risk and their health at risk…these governments need to stop and they need to stop doing it in a coordinated way as well, if that's what's actually taking place.”

When pressed to fully discount the fact that this could be a coordinated effort, Secretary Pompeo responded directly. “We see very similar messages propagated by very similar means. It's difficult to know the level of coordination.” 

The WHO Failed to Protect the World

What Pompeo does know is that the World Health Organization botched its role in protecting citizens. That led the president to temporarily stop providing funding. But what would it take to get the WHO back in good standing with the United States at this point? 

“Boy David, it's hard to know,” says Pompeo. “It's important that your viewers understand the history of the World Health Organization as well. This is not the first time that that institution has failed to protect the world. You may recall SARS. The same kind of thing happened where the WHO was unable to do its primary function, stopping a pandemic from spreading across the world. And this time, they were unable to. You can see it. They said, ‘don't close your borders.’ President Trump made the decision to do that and keep the American people safe. They were too slow in declaring that this was something that could transmit from human to human. Those are the kinds of things that the WHO has failed in.” 

Pompeo: China's Bad Behavior Escalated When Obama/Biden Let Them 'Walk All Over US' 

Democrats say it’s the Trump administration that failed to take early action against the virus. Recently, the presumptive Democrat nominee for president Joe Biden said he would have sent health experts to China. Pompeo strenuously pushed back against that. 

“This president and this administration worked diligently to work to get Americans on the ground there in China to help, the World Health Organization, tried to get in there as well. We were rebuffed. The Chinese government wouldn't let it happen.” 

Pompeo wasn’t finished as he lowered the boom on Biden’s time inside the White House. 

“The previous administration allowed China to walk all over us and gain trade, grant opportunities, create wealth and trade benefits for China. This president has taken a fundamentally 180 degrees different approach with respect to how we respond to the challenges that China presents to American security."

When asked directly whether he believes the Obama administration was soft on China, he didn’t mince words. “Relative to this administration, they were wildly soft.” 

Iran Can't Be Allowed to Threaten US Ships

This current administration has been anything but soft on the country of Iran. This week, the regime provocatively launched a military satellite into orbit and President Trump ordered America’s military to sink any Iranian boats harassing US ships. Pompeo has said Iran needs to be held accountable for what they've done. But how? 

“What we intend to do is to gather the nations across the world,” Secretary Pompeo tells CBN News. “The French put out a statement today (Thursday). They too know how dangerous and destabilizing what Iran did. I’m confident that there will now be more countries that understand what President Trump has understood, since he first came into office: that the Iran deal was a crazy bad deal; that we all need to move away from it; that the world needs to disassociate itself from Iran; and that the community of nations needs to come together and convince the Iranian regime to cease their activity which has led to them being the world's largest state sponsor of terror for so many years.” 

To be sure, given terror threats in key regions plus a hidden enemy threatening the world, this secretary faces a challenge not seen in generations.

HEAR MORE reports from David Brody at his podcast: The Pod's Honest Truth

WATCH: Sen. Tom Cotton Tells CBN 'China Is Culpable' for Spreading the Coronavirus Around the World

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