Former President Donald Trump told Dan Bongino on Tuesday that he has "very little doubt" the COVID-19 virus originated from a virology lab in Wuhan, China, touting vindication for his theory once dismissed by mainstream outlets and medical experts as a conspiracy.
"It came from the lab," Trump told "The Dan Bongino Show" on Fox Nation. "I have very little doubt it came from the lab."
Trump was one of the first people to suggest that a lab leak might have been the source of the outbreak, with warnings dating back to April 2020. While the lab-leak theory was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory amongst mainstream reporters, it has since gained credence with more experts saying it's possible or even likely. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently said he is "not convinced" the novel coronavirus developed naturally. Media outlets and leading political figures are increasingly treating it as a serious possibility.
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"You warned us," Bongino told the former president, "and these idiots in the media ignored it."
"Now everybody is agreeing that I was right when I very early on called Wuhan as the source of COVID-19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus," the former president said in a statement earlier Tuesday.
Trump credited the travel restrictions he imposed on China at the onset of the pandemic for saving "tens of thousands of lives" in light of the latest developments surrounding the origins of the pandemic.
"Take a look at the fact that I closed the country to China very early at the end of January and Dr. Fauci - I'm not against him, we get along very well actually, but I usually did exactly what he said, the opposite, in other words…he said things that were just wrong. He didn't want to close to China, he later admitted that I saved tens of thousands of lives by closing early," Trump said.
REPORTERS BLAME TRUMP FOR THE REASON THEY DIDN'T INITIALLY FIND WUHAN LAB LEAK THEORY CREDIBLE
As for his broader handling of the pandemic, Trump told Bongino, "They say that I played it down…well I don't want to alarm, I don't want to have people running around scared to live, to breathe to do anything. I'm an optimistic person, and tough. I was very tough on the FDA…had that not happened we would have lost millions of people."
Trump touted his success in hastily developing a vaccine and called his decision to order millions of doses while they were still in the clinical trial stage the "greatest bet ever made."
The experience, Trump told Bongino, was a "horrible," one, but credited his administration for "setting it on track."
For Trump's full commentary and more episodes available exclusively on the platform, visit Fox Nation and watch "The Dan Bongino Show" today.
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