Media anxious that GOP will ‘jump’ on COVID ‘lab leak’ report: Republican ‘conspiracy theories’
The liberal media came out in force against Republicans after the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory gained further prominence in Washington D.C., arguing that the GOP were using the opportunity as a cudgel against the Biden administration.
The Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department concluded with “low confidence” that the virus likely originated from a lab leak in China.
It was high-level confirmation of what some Republican lawmakers, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. and even comedian Jon Stewart have previously said — that COVID may have leaked from a laboratory setting.
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on February 3, 2021. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP | Getty Images)
But mainstream journalists continued to dismiss the lab leak theory, dismissing it as political fodder for Republicans.
The Washington Post framed Republicans’ response to seeming confirmation of the theory from the Energy Department as support for “GOP talking points” in a story headlined, “‘Lab leak’ report energizes Republicans’ covid probes.”
MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown claimed that Republicans picked up power based on “Covid-related conspiracy theories”, including about Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown said that the “Energy Department’s lab leak assessment isn’t a smoking gun.”
He also claimed that Republicans picked up power based on “Covid-related conspiracy theories”, including about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“[H]is frequent media appearances warning about the dangers of Covid during the pandemic,” Brown wrote, “has made Fauci a perfect shadowy figure to populate numerous dark conspiracy theories.”
Again, the MSNBC columnist attached the GOP to “conspiracy theories,” predicting that “House Republicans will likely latch on to the ‘low confidence’ conclusion as proof for conspiracy theories about Covid’s origins.”
The Biden administration has said that there is “not a consensus” on the “lab leak” theory as the origin of COVID. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Politico took its own shots at Republicans, writing that they “are anxious to use new Covid-19 lab leak reports to lash out at the ruling Chinese Communist Party and paint President Joe Biden’s administration as soft on Beijing.”
The Biden administration has said that there is “not a consensus” on the “lab leak” theory as to the origin of COVID.
The Hill portrayed Republicans as “seizing on a new Energy Department conclusion pointing to a ‘lab leak’ as causing the COVID-19 outbreak to call for swift action against the Chinese government.”
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
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