Stirewalt: There won't be a timeline or solution that fits every state
Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt weighs in on Trump's plan to reopen economy in phases.
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Fox News digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt said on Friday that China’s refusal to share the “severity” of the coronavirus outbreak will be viewed by the world as an "unforgivable error.”
“A year ago, China was excited about expanding its role in the world. A year ago, China was excited about supplanting the United States,” Stirewalt told “Outnumbered Overtime.”
“Guess where China is going to be when this is all done: closer to where it once was, a pariah state.”
U.S. officials are increasingly confident the virus likely escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, where it was being studied.
Multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News that the virus – a naturally occurring strain that was being studied at the Wuhan lab – was initially transmitted from a bat to a human. It is believed that "patient zero" worked at the Wuhan lab.
Stirewalt said that the issues with China and the World Health Organization “predate” the coronavirus crisis,” which would cause the United States to deal with them cautiously going forward.
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Stirewalt went on to say, “The crisis will give salience to those in the United States in both parties who say we need to view China, maybe not as an outright enemy, but as a country that we have to deal with real trepidation.”
The “increasing confidence” comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly.
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Sources emphasized – as is often the case with intelligence – that this version of events is not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
Fox News' Brett Baier and Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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