Ex-CNN President Jeff Zucker Ordered Staff To Ignore Lab-Leak Theory

Former CNN president Jeff Zucker ordered network employees not to investigate the Covid-19 lab leak theory because he considered it a “Trump talking point,” a “well-placed” CNN insider told Fox News Digital on Monday.

The ‘theory’ was recently bolstered by a Department of Energy finding that a lab-leak was the most likely origin for the virus, while FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed last week that his agency believes the same.

“People are slowly waking up from the fog,” the insider told Fox. “It is kind of crazy that we didn’t chase it harder.”

Throughout Zucker’s tenure as CNN’s chief, he pulled what was once widely seen as a straight-news organization to an anti-Trump operation. CNN bent over backwards to knock down what former President Trump and members of his administration said lending credibility to the lab-leak theory, as the White House was deemed a nemesis by the network. -Fox News

Fox News notes that on March 28, 2020, CNN‘s Oliver Darcy published a story with the headline:”Here’s how to debunk coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories from friends and family.”

Add this near the top of the mountains of media scandals. On a vital question of this generation – how did COVID originate? – they claimed a certainty they lacked, and banished a theory that was fully viable, because they prioritized their partisan allegiances above reporting.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 6, 2023

“While the coronavirus pandemic has isolated family and friends inside their homes, it has in many cases increased online or over-the-phone communication with loved ones,” Darcy wrote. “But, in some cases, relatives and friends share poor information – whether it is bad science related to how to prevent the virus, debunked rumors about cities being put on lockdown, or conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19. While any strain of misinformation is not ideal, misinformation related to a public health crisis has an especially dangerous element to it,” he continued.

CNN host Fareed Zakaria notably said that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” while discussing the lab-leak theory.

And on Feb. 18, 2020, CNN insisted that it was “possible, yet unlikely, that the lab was connected to the start of the outbreak.”

Meanwhile, during an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci – who we recently learned ordered the fabrication of the ‘Proximal Origins’ paper ruling out the lab-leak – CNN‘s John Vause called the lab-leak theory “misinformation.”

Fauci responded that “theories that are not based on evidence and facts often can really mislead people.”

A CNN headline from April 2020 reading “Nearly 30% in the US believe a coronavirus theory that’s almost certainly not true” was based on a Pew Research poll taken at the time. 

“Its origin is up for debate, but it wasn’t made in a lab,” CNN reported. “There’s still much we don’t know about the coronavirus pandemic, but virus experts agree on one piece of its origin story: The virus likely originated in a bat, not in a Chinese lab.” -Fox News

CNN directly politicized the issue once again on May 5, 2020, when now-fired Chris Cillizza, wrote the headline “Anthony Fauci just crushed Donald Trump’s theory on the origins of the coronavirus,” in which he noted that Trump “has been making the case that the coronavirus originated not in nature but in a lab in Wuhan, China,” but that Fauci’s natural origins claim was more accurate.

“Now, before we play the game of ‘he said, he said’ remember this: Only one of these two people is a world-renowned infectious disease expert. And it’s not Donald Trump,” wrote Cillizza. “In short, Fauci’s view on the origins of the disease matters a whole lot more than Trump’s opinion about where it came from.”

“Especially because, outside of Trump and his immediate inner circle, most people in a position to know are very, very skeptical of the Trump narrative that the virus came out of a lab – whether accidentally or on purpose.”

And of course, it was more than just CNN…

Probably the most incredible media fact — one so shameful the NYT has to ignore it — is that their lead COVID reporter maligned the lab leak theory as **racist**, only for key parts of the USG itself to now admit it’s a likely explanation.

Fauci gave the orders; they obeyed. pic.twitter.com/p3sOcKBW0C

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 6, 2023