Washington D.C. – Yesterday, Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX), Lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared live on “Fox News at Night” with Shannon Bream to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus disinformation campaign as well as recent developments with Iran. 

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On the CCP’s disinformation campaign in the U.S.: They have infiltrated our platforms in the United States. They have spread this fake news about the origin of the Covid-19, blaming it on the military through various platforms and as you mentioned, the lock down is another good example of them amplifying a false message. When this was called to my attention a month ago, we sent a letter to the social media companies to try to clamp down on this propaganda machine coming out of China, spreading false information and trying to have discord and panic within the United States, also lying about the origin of the coronavirus which we all know came out of Wuhan, China. This was YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. We will be working with them to try to take down this content that is an outright lie coming out of the Communist Party. 

On CCP propaganda: They’re lying about all of this and it’s interesting how they blame the United States military for the virus. It’s interesting how they use our freedom of speech, our First Amendment rights to attack us from within. At the same time, they’re kicking United States journalists out of China who are trying to report the truth about what happened, the origins of the virus, and the cover-up by the Chinese Communist Party.

On the truth about the coverup: Going back, they detained and arrested eight doctors and put a gag order on them and  destroyed lab samples to control the investigation. Moving on, the warnings from within about human to human transition were real. They came from Taiwan, warning the WHO. They came from the WHO official in Wuhan itself. The WHO was complicit in the coverup. Then, you fast-forward to a Spring Festival that took place for millions of people who were traveling out of Wuhan and then internationally. This is a point where we could have contained it and yet the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party failed to contain it. It went from an epidemic, to a global pandemic.

On Iran: They’re the largest state-sponsor of terror. I think the President has showed great restraint when it comes to Iran. I commended the President when he took out the mastermind of terror for the last two decades in the Middle East. I argued on the House Floor, a War Powers Resolution, against the Democrats who were condemning the fact that the President took him out in Baghdad. He was consulting with his top lieutenants after they attacked our Embassy. How much provocation do we need to defend ourselves? I think the President is making the right decision here to allow our military when assaulted to defend themselves. That is precisely what he did in that tweet today.

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