Fox News "The Story with Martha McCallum" - Transcript Interview with Guy Reschenthaler

Interview

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With me now is Congressman Guy Reschenthaler, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, good to see you. Are you curious about timing at all? Why now? Why is the World Health Organization sending a team to China now? Have anything to do, do you suspect, with the President pulling funding away from W.H.O.?

REP. GUY RESCHENTHALER (R-PA): Trace, thanks for having me on? First of all - first off, think about it, less than 72 hours ago, the President pulled funding or at least told the UN that we were going to pull out of the World Health Organization to the tune of $400 million being directed by the United States, not the World Health Organization.

So I think this investigation is a little too little, too late. And at the end of the day, we know what's going to be in this report. The World Health Organization is going to report exactly what the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, allows it to report.

GALLAGHER: Yes, and here's the here's the deal. The way this goes down, they're telling us that, the W.H.O. team will actually work with some Chinese scientists. And the question becomes, will the Chinese just guide this thing? Will they cooperate? Is it open?

The Chinese Foreign Minister says this, quoting here. "China took the lead in inviting W.H.O. experts to investigate and discuss the scientific virus tracing. The purpose is to contribute to a more effective global epidemic response and a global public health cooperation. It demonstrates that China takes on its responsibility as a major country in contrast to the U.S., which keeps shirking its responsibility for the incompetence of its epidemic response."

So they have a statement and they take a swipe at the U.S. here. The question that everybody's asking is, the evidence of that Wuhan market is gone. There's no evidence. So how do you conduct a study when you do not have the evidence to conduct it with?

RESCHENTHALER: Well, Trace allowing the World Health Organization to investigate China is like having El Chapo investigate the Mexican drug cartels. It's absolutely laughable. And let's get one thing straight.

They they're saying this is going to be an envoy or a team of scientists, the World Health Organization is sending to two scientists. They're going to be supervised by the Chinese Communist Party the entire time. They're in Wuhan.

And we do know that the Chinese have not handed over documents. A lot of the evidence has gone missing conveniently. And so, I think that again, at the end of the day, the World Health Organization is going to report whatever the World Health - whatever the Chinese Communist Party tells them to report.

And Trace, we know the World Health Organization is continuing to perpetuate these lies. They're still - they still have information on their webpage that the Chinese reported this disease first. That's not true. They learnt about it from American webpages. The World Health Organization continued to parrot Chinese talking points, saying this didn't spread person-to-person for months.

GALLAGHER: I'm wondering if you look at big picture - the whole thing, the totality of our relationship with China and the acrimony that appears to be building in. And now China comes out and says, they want nothing to do with the trilateral talks with Russia, and with the United States, concerning maybe limiting nuclear weapons.

What do you make of the relationship going forward between the United States? Are we inching toward another Cold War?

RESCHENTHALER: Trace, we're already in a Cold War with China. China has overtly said they want to be the world's superpower, and they want to do it by 2049. They've escalated that timeframe to be 2029. We are already in a Cold War, whether we like it or not.

But the fact that we're having these negotiations on nuclear weapons without China is foolhardy. We know that China is our adversary right now, Russia is certainly too, but China is our main adversary. And to limit ourselves bilaterally with Russia to tie our hands when China is projected to double - double the amount of nuclear weapons they have within 10 years, we can't tie our hands. We've got to take the threat from China seriously. And if we're going to limit our nuclear weapons, China has to as well.

GALLAGHER: And then you toss in the Chinese crackdown of Hong Kong and it gets a little bit dicey going forward. Congressman Reschenthaler, thank you for joining us, sir. We appreciate it.

RESCHENTHALER: Thank you, Trace.

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