Ari Fleischer blasts media's dismissal of lab leak hypothesis: 'Anti-evidence, anti-science, anti-intellect'
'Three million dead and we're not willing to take a hard look at what China’s role was in this?' Fleischer said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer took a swing at the mainstream media Thursday over its more than year-long dismissal of the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked from a lab in China.
On "America's Newsroom", Fleischer castigated the press as "anti-evidence, anti-science [and] anti-intellect" for admittedly dismissing the theory in part because it came from Republicans and former President Donald Trump's administration.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Host Dana Perino cited a Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing President Biden's handling of the investigation into the virus' origins following new revelations adding credence to the lab leak hypothesis. The op-ed stated the "suspicious" facts surrounding its possible origins in a lab were "apparent from the start."
"My only quibble with that editorial is it said new evidence … The evidence has been there all along," Fleischer said, before going on to state that Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was right to begin discussing the virus' origins from early last year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He pointed out the Washington Post, New York Times, Facebook, and China itself were all wrong to dismiss the the idea so early. He specifically called out China for doing everything it could to lie and deceive the world about the virus, and said that the media just went along with it.
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid were among the numerous cable and media figures last year to call Trump's tying of the virus to the China lab an effort to deflect blame or a "conspiracy theory."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This is just so terrible. It's anti-evidence, anti-science, anti-intellect, all in the service of get Trump politics," Fleischer said. "Now we Americans have got to open up our eyes. If there is truth, if there is evidence, it needs to be pursued."
Fleischer added that too often Trump's media critics automatically think any idea from the right must be wrong, calling it a disservice to the public.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Three million dead and we're not willing to take a hard look at what China’s role was in this?" he said. "We better now take a real hard, open look, release the intelligence of what China’s role in this, and the chips need to fall wherever they may, because three million people have died and the world is in turmoil. Why? Don’t we deserve to know?"