Trey Gowdy on holding China accountable for coronavirus: 'There are lots of ways we can hold China down'

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Trey Gowdy on whether China will be held accountable for the COVID-19 crisis

Fox News contributor and former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy joins Jesse Watters on 'Watters' World.'

Former congressman Trey Gowdy appeared on "Watters' World" Saturday and reacted to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, introducing legislation that would allow Americans to sue China over the coronavirus.

"We need a change in the law because of the Sovereign Immunity Act, which makes it almost impossible to sue other countries in U.S. District Court," Gowdy said, commending the legislators. "You sue, you're going to have the challenges of getting the information from China, the discovery, as we call it, in the legal realm."

"And then the damages. I mean, if you've lost your life or lost your business or suffered injury, you're entitled to damages," Gowdy added.

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Gowdy, a former South Carolina representative, said that in addition to individual lawsuits, China must be held accountable and he named other means in which America could do that.

"There's also a need, a responsibility for the world to hold China accountable," Gowdy said. "Well, let me say, if you cannot warn other countries that a pandemic has been unleashed, you have no business being a leader on the world stage."

The former congressman said America could hit China "hardest" by reclaiming industries that do business there.

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"And then there's what our country can do. And I think where we can hit on the hardest there is to ostracize them, but also to reclaim our manufacturing, reclaim our pharmaceutical manufacturing in particular," Gowdy said. "There are lots of ways we can hold China down."