Trump suspects gross incompetence led to the COVID-19 Wuhan lab leak – Sky News Australia

Former US President Donald Trump has spoken exclusively to Sky News Australia about how he believes COVID-19 escaped the infamous Wuhan lab in central China.

Former US President Donald Trump has revealed he suspects "gross incompetence" may have led to COVID-19 escaping a Wuhan lab.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News Australia journalist Sharri Markson, the former president detailed how classified intelligence pointed to the Wuhan Institute of virology as the likely source of the deadly virus.

Some of the intelligence is classified and I can't talk about it, but it most likely, and when I say most likely, like 95 per cent, came from the Wuhan lab, the former president said.

I don't know if they had bad thoughts or whether it was gross incompetence, but one way or the other it came out of Wuhan, it came from the Wuhan lab.

I started hearing stories that there were lots of body bags outside of the lab. I heard that a long time ago. And if they did in fact have body bags, that was one little indication wasn't it?

COVID-19 has killed more than four million people worldwide and led to financial hardship on a global scale.

Mr Trump said it was unlikely the virus was deliberately leaked from the Wuhan lab.

I think it was probably an accident, I don't think it was on purpose. If it was, that's essentially war, he said.

Mr Trump also shed light on a theory about how the virus may have escaped the Wuhan lab.

A scientist walked out and had lunch outside in a park or something with the girlfriend and he had it and she had it, he said.

I don't know if it was patient zero or patient something else, but that's one theory.

I think that it was incompetence. I think that it escaped from the lab through incompetence.

In the documentary, Ms Markson also spoke to an investigator who claimed questions needed to be answered about whether the virus was genetically manipulated to serve as a bio-weapon, even if it had indeed leaked from the lab.

Former COVID-19 Investigator David Asher said the Chinese were undergoing research which was definitely related to biological warfare ambitions.

However, Mr Trump told Ms Markson he wanted to give China the benefit of the doubt especially as the global superpower was also severely damaged by the virus.

I really don't think it was (a biological weapon), but nobody can really know for sure, Mr Trump said.

And certainly now most of that evidence is gone, and it's going to be very hard to find out.

On the September 12, 2019, the virus database at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was taken offline, and with it 22,000 coronavirus samples were gone.

Despite the missing database and reports of whistle blowers and scientists going missing after the outbreak, the World Health Organisation on multiple occasions praised China for its pandemic response.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom said Beijings transparency around the virus was very impressive and beyond words.

Mr Trump slammed the WHO and Dr Tedros, telling Sky News Australia the global health body was influenced and even owned and controlled by the Chinese government.

The WHO is owned and controlled by China. I dropped out of the World Health Organisation. I thought it was ridiculous, he said.

They were late, they were wrong. They were like a mouthpiece for China.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who led the Trump administrations efforts to uncover the truth, said Dr Tedros was deeply beholden to the Chinese regime.

Dr Tedros owed his leadership role at the WHO to deals that were cut with the Chinese Communist Party. Dr Tedros couldn't have been that next leader without the support of the Chinese Communist Party, Mr Pompeo told Sky News Australia.

"They (WHO) weren't willing to demand from the Chinese Communist Party that they be given access. They failed, they failed because of the absence of backbone and resolve and the world is deeply worse off for this.

This was the tragedy, the central tragedy of the end of '19 and the beginning of '20. It became political, not scientific. It became driven by personal incentives and not the dataset.

What Really Happened in Wuhan is available to stream on-demand exclusively on Foxtel. Sharri Marksons book by the same name is available for pre-order now on Booktopia and Amazon.

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Trump suspects gross incompetence led to the COVID-19 Wuhan lab leak - Sky News Australia