"Naive" might be generously polite as a way to describe Dr. Anthony Fauci amidst the backlash he's been receiving following the release of thousands of his emails earlier this week. All the same, it was one of the words used by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when speaking about the good doctor.
Pompeo spoke with Fox News on Thursday concerning Fauci's remarks that he made earlier in the day about how to deal with China now that the "lab leak theory" seems to be gaining steam.
Here's part of what Fauci told MSNBC on Thursday, as reported by The Daily Wire:
I mean, it’s obviously in China’s interest to find out exactly what it is, and the ‘is’ of the natural theory would be to find that link, so you have to keep looking for it. I mean, obviously you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways you can get it is don’t be accusatory. Try to get both a forensic, a scientific, and an investigational approach. I think the accusatory part about it is only going to get them to pull back even more.
In response, Pompeo basically told Fox News that the Chinese cannot be trusted and Fauci's comments come as "no great surprise."
“The Chinese have a deep interest in covering it up and they’ve done so pretty darn effectively," Pompeo said.
Pompeo asserted that Fauci's comments are in line with those of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese have the ability to "clear this all up in a minute it they wanted to."
“For Dr. Fauci to go and think for a moment that the Chinese Communist Party cared that there were people in Wuhan that were dying, whether it was Chinese people or Americans, whoever else might be there is just naïve beyond all possible imagination," Pompeo said. "The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t care for a moment, they have no desire for the world to know what happened. They could clear this all up in a minute if they wanted to.”
Fauci's comments above are just more of that Obama-era diplomacy of "lead from behind." Meanwhile, China gains more and more power and influence over the rest of the world because they're allowed to do whatever they like. And while taking the "forensic," "scientific" and "investigational" approaches might - and that's a strong might - get us answers, by the time we get it too much time will have passed and China will once again receive little to no repercussions for their possibly deliberate actions.
For Pompeo's full comments, watch below: