President Trump said Thursday that he had seen evidence to prove that the coronavirus pandemic had spread from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but he declined to detail what that evidence was.
“I’m not allowed to tell you that,” he said at a White House news conference at which he repeatedly accused China’s government of being negligent in its response to the virus, while leaving open the possibility it was intentionally spread.
The reporter asked the president if he had personally seen evidence that the virus originated in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Pressed later on the specific evidence that gave him confidence that the virus had come from a lab, Trump said, “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.”
“This is something that could have been contained at the original location, and I think it could have been contained relatively easily,” Trump said. “China’s a very sophisticated country and they could have contained it. They were either unable to, or they chose not to and the world has suffered greatly.”
Pressed on whether he believed China had intentionally let the virus spread, Trump said it was a possibility. “I want to find out what happened,” he said, adding that his administration was investigating the cause of the pandemic.“They could have stopped it,” Trump said of China. “They are a very brilliant nation, scientifically and otherwise. It got loose, let’s say, and they could have capped it. They could have stopped it, but they didn’t.”
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