Rep. Mike Johnson on holding China accountable for coronavirus: 'We need to take decisive action'

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Rep. Mike Johnson on economic fallout from COVID-19 lockdowns

Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson joins Jon Scott to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., joined "Fox Report" anchor Jon Scott to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic and how to hold China accountable.

"I think we need to take decisive action. And so we proposed in our framework that China, really the government there, be held accountable," Johnson said Saturday. "How do you do that? Well, we could end these visas, for example, that Chinese government officials used to bring themselves and their families into the U.S. to take advantage of educational opportunities in leisure and otherwise until they retract their outrageous claims that somehow America was responsible for the coronavirus problem."

TIMELINE OF CHINA'S POSSIBLE CORONAVIRUS COVER-UP

Johnson said there were "a lot of things" the U.S. could do to get China to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) access to research the origins of the coronavirus.

"Look, there's a lot of things that we can do in terms of forcing their hand to have the CDC be able to have access to China to further research how this pandemic came about and how we can better respond to it," Johnson said. "We need to investigate the WHO [World Health Organization] and their connection to China, as well."

A research dossier compiled by the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, which reportedly concludes that China intentionally hid or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus pandemic, is consistent with U.S. findings about the origins of the outbreak so far, senior U.S. officials told Fox News on Saturday.

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Johnson said that Congress is concerned with China's actions.

"I think rank-and-file members of Congress are very concerned about these things. And we need to hold Chinese officials accountable if they were culpable in any way with the mishandling of this," Johnson added.  "And I think, frankly, the bad faith that they exhibited."

Fox News' Adam Shaw, Gillian Turner and John Roberts contributed to this report.