Despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Thursday entertained conspiracy theories about coronavirus being a “biological weapon” and suggested that the United States should go to war with China over the pandemic “whether they did it intentionally or not.”
“If we don’t go to war over the loss of 31,000 now, and certainly more to come, 31,000 American lives, what do we go to war over?” Dobbs said during an interview with former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
“When do we quit sending strong letters and talking tough? At what point are there consequences for this kind of behavior?
“Because whether they did it intentionally or not, we do know this: that that virus was unleashed on the world and they lied, and that is the same as making it an intentional and conscious act of warfare, as far as I’m concerned.”
The “Lou Dobbs Tonight” host and resolute President Donald Trump devotee has consistently shifted blame to China for the government’s lagging handling of the pandemic and has enlisted xenophobic terminology to highlight the virus’s origins. He led up to his dramatic statement Thursday by riffing on the possibility of the coronavirus being a “conscious and overt act on the part of the Chinese military” to release a “biological weapon.”
For months, genomics and infectious diseases experts have refuted the possibility that COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, could have anything other than natural origins based on its genomic data.
On Fox News just a day earlier, anchor Bret Baier had resurfaced the theory that coronavirus started in a Chinese lab but then clarified “there is no one who’s saying this was a bioweapon.”
h/t Media Matters
- Stay up to date with our live blog as we cover the COVID-19 pandemic
- What happens if we end social distancing too soon?
- What you need to know about face masks right now
- How long are asymptomatic carriers contagious?
- Lost your job due to coronavirus? Here’s what you need to know.
- Everything you need to know about coronavirus and grief
- The HuffPost guide to working from home
- What coronavirus questions are on your mind right now? We want to help you find answers.
- Everyone deserves accurate information about COVID-19. Support journalism without a paywall — and keep it free for everyone — by becoming a HuffPost member today.