Trump tells Dan Bongino he’s CERTAIN Covid came from Wuhan lab after ‘3 scientists fell ill at beginning of outbreak’

DONALD Trump has said he is all but certain that Covid-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, China, after a bombshell report claimed three scientists there fell ill at the beginning of the outbreak in November 2019.

Speaking to Fox Nation’s Dan Bognino on Monday, the former president said: “I think you can take the word ‘potential’ out that it came from the lab.”

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Trump said there was “doubt” that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan[/caption]

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Trump’s comments come after it was revealed three scientists were hospitalized in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms[/caption]

Trump’s comments come after the Wall Street Journal reported three scientists from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms.

Bongino and Trump were talking about the theory that the virus did originate in a lab in Wuhan, which the president often mentioned on the campaign trail.

The former president’s comments bring a renewed interest in the theory that was dismissed as a fringe theory in the past, with the Journal’s report adding new details to a State Department fact sheet released by the Trump Administration in January saying as such.

The fact sheet claimed that Chinese researchers fell ill to a Covid-like virus in the fall of 2019, weeks before the first coronavirus case was identified.

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The scientists worked at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology[/caption]

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The Trump Administration has been pushing this theory over the campaign trail[/caption]

However, the fact sheet fell short of saying anyone from the lab was hospitalized, as the Journal’s report corroborated.

The report showed three Wuhan lab staff became sick and needed hospital care weeks before China disclosed the virus outbreak to the world, a bombshell spy report reveals.

Citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report, the Wall Street Journal said the dossier revealed fresh details on the number of researchers affected.

It also shows the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits in November 2019, when China officially detected the outbreak.

This may add weight to calls for a broader probe of whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, where the pandemic is believed to have begun.

It comes after US top virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci said he was “not convinced” Covid developed naturally and called for a full investigation amid claims of a cover-up.

As of today, there have been more than 3.45 million confirmed deaths attributed to Covid-19 — making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

The report came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

A National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the Journal’s report.

But she said the Biden administration continued to have “serious questions about the earliest days of the pandemic, including its origins within the People’s Republic of China”.

She said: “We’re not going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the source of SARS-CoV-2, but we’ve been clear that sound and technically credible theories should be thoroughly evaluated by international experts.”

The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed a range of views about the strength of the report’s supporting evidence.