How Trump’s GOP

pushes false conspiracy theories

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

June 12, 2020

“A man who obeys a bad government, without working to make that government good, is not an honest man.” 

José Martí

A new report by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology has identified coordinated networks of Pro-Trump and QAnon social media clusters at the centre of coordinated efforts to disseminate disinformation about COVID-19, particularly the conspiracy theory that China engineered the virus as a bioweapon. The full report, Like a virus: The coordinated spread of coronavirus disinformation, can be downloaded here.

The theory that COVID-19 was engineered by China has been embraced by President Trump and elements of his administration. The Trump administration has consistently attacked China over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Trump has referred to coronavirus regularly as the “China virus”. On June 4, President Trump referred to the COVID-19 as the “China plague”.

The re-emergence of the phrase elicited criticism across social media, from many who pointed out that terms like the “China plague” or the “China virus” — which experts have warned could put Asian Americans in harm’s way — run counter to ideas of racial equality, particularly as protests continue across the nation over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody.

Trump also said he has proof Covid-19 originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan to deflecting attention away from criticism it faltered in its handling of the outbreak and casting blame onto China. I write when the United States is on track to surpass two million COVID-19 cases in the next few days. So far, more than 112,000 deaths have been reported. According to experts, 90 percent of US coronavirus deaths could have been avoided if measures taken just two weeks earlier.

Almost half of Twitter accounts sharing coronavirus tweets are likely bots, according to Carnegie Mellon University research released on May 20.  The university’s researchers scoured through more than 200 million tweets talking about coronavirus or COVID-19 since January and concluded nearly 45 percent of the accounts behaved like robots instead of humans, NPR reported. The study found that of the top 50 influential retweeters, 82 percent are likely bots, and of the top 1,000 retweeters, 62 percent are likely bots. 

Scientists from multiple countries have said that evidence suggests the virus originated from wildlife, not a lab — and most intelligence agencies remain skeptical evidence can be found to prove any lab claim as well. A few scientists have suggested it’s possible the virus accidentally infected one of the researchers in the lab, but many scientists have dismissed the theory.  

Chronology of how Trump’s GOP pushes false conspiracy theory that China engineered the COVID-19

January 26: The conservative Washington Times publishes a report with the menacing headline “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program,”  which immediately gets global pickup.

February 16: Sen. Tom Cotton — who according to the Wall Street Journal, has been a longtime adviser to President Trump — becomes the first high-profile U.S. politician to raise the possibility that the outbreak “originated” — or, presumably, was created — in the Wuhan lab — while admitting there was no evidence to suggest there was.

February 16: The Washington Post finds experts who quickly dismiss Cotton’s suggestion, like Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, who says, “The possibility this was a deliberately released bioweapon can be firmly excluded.”

February 16: Sen. Cotton clarifies his earlier remarks in a series of tweets — noting different possible  scenarios, from a man-made virus theory to a lab accident — though concedes that the virus originating naturally is “still the most likely” theory.

February 18: (Emphasis mine) A group of 27 prominent scientists outside China publishes a statement in The Lancet  — which is one of the world’s most prestigious journals of general medicine —to “condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin“ and point out the research  “overwhelmingly” concludes the “coronavirus originated in wildlife.”

March 17: “We do not believe any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” five prominent scientists write in a report published in Nature Medicine.

March 25: The Washington Times adds an update to its original story, noting that “scientists outside of China have had a chance to study the SARS-CoV-2 virus” and have “concluded it does not show signs of having been manufactured or purposefully manipulated in a lab.”

April 16: CNN and Fox News report officials inside the government are investigating the claim the virus was released from the lab accidentally as scientists were studying infectious diseases. The reports indicate the intelligence officials do not believe the virus is man-made or developed as a bioweapon.

April 18: President Trump says during a White House briefing that the U.S. government was looking into the claim the virus spread as a result of a lab accident and that it made “sense,” without citing evidence; during the same briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci throws cold water on the claim, citing a study that found the virus’s “mutations” are “totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.”

April 21: The theory picks up steam among other GOP lawmakers, and Sen. Cotton now pens an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, writing: “While the Chinese government denies the possibility of a lab leak, its actions tell a different story.”

April 25: Politico reported that a memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee  instructed GOP campaigns to say China caused the virus “by covering it up” and that Democrats are “soft on China.”

April 30: The New York Times reports that senior Trump administration officials, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, pushed U.S. spy agencies to dig up evidence linking the lab to the origin of the outbreak even though most intelligence agencies remain skeptical of finding any evidence to support any link to the lab.

April 30: (Emphasis mine) The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community releases a statement saying the intelligence community “concurs with the scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified” but added officials will continue to “rigorously examine emerging information” to determine whether the “outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”

April 30: During a White House event, President Trump says, without providing specifics, he has a “high degree of confidence” the virus came from a lab in Wuhan. As we are already used to listening to president Trump, he affirms without evidence and also without truth. A prominent Republican, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls presiden Trump a liar. Trump’s rhetoric “dangerous for our democracy” and “dangerous for our country,” Powell said. 

May 3: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says on ABC News “This Week” that there is “enormous evidence” to support the theory that COVID-19 came from the lab, though agreed with the inspector general that the virus did not appear “manmade or genetically modified,” and would not say whether he thought it was intentionally released because the “Chinese Communist Party has refused to cooperate with world health experts.”

May 4: In an interview with National Geographic, Dr. Anthony Fauci — who was appointed Director of NIAID in 1984 and has advised six Presidents — says there is no evidence the COVID-19 was “artificially or deliberately manipulated,” that all signs indicate that the coronavirus “evolved in nature and then jumped species,” and doubted that could have escaped the Wuhan laboratory.

May 5: During an on-camera press briefing at the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley says “we don’t know” whether the outbreak began in a Chinese lab or a wet market, and added “the weight of evidence is that it was natural and not manmade.”

May 6: Pompeo seems to hedge his statements, now saying, “we don't have certainty,” the virus leaked from the lab, even though “there is significant evidence that this came from the laboratory.” More than a month has passed since that Mr. Pompeo said that there is “enormous evidence” to support the theory that COVID-19 came from the lab, but Secretary of State has not shown any evidence. Where is the evidence to prove it? Where is the evidence that it is true?

May 12: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who lead the Senate Intelligence Committee, told “Axios on HBO” (emphasis mine),

“I’m not ruling out that it could be a lab accident, and some experts have not ruled it out either,” said Rubio. “Though I can’t prove it and no one can because we don’t have enough information to disprove it or prove it.”

In a nutshell, although for three months prominent scientists outside China denied emphatically that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin — for example, Dr. Fauci again dismisses Wuhan lab as source of coronavirus — Sen. Rubio says “we don't have enough information to disprove it or prove it.”

What different behavior has the senator Rubio in Twitter. As protests over the police killing of George Floyd continue across the United States, Sen. Rubio — who lead the Senate Intelligence Committee — tweeted, 

         “Interesting & timely uncover expose on #Antifa, a violent movement some continue to deny exists,” with zero self-reflection or notes of irony about video claiming to “expose” the inner workings of antifa, a non-existent organization the Trump Administration wants to deem “domestic terrorists.”

Where is the evidence to prove it? Where is the evidence that it is true? Nothing could be more untruthful, more false, than his tweet. As Sen. Rubio knows, the video was created by James O’Keefe’s widely discredited right wing attack group Project Veritas, which has a long history of incredibly fake stories. For instance, Project Veritas: how fake news prize went to rightwing group beloved by Trump.

Trump’ broken English is very difficult to understand. Rubio does not talk in a broken way like he, but Rubio tells the same lies like Trump.