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Quick Hit:

A newly uncovered Defense Department report reveals that seven U.S. troops may have contracted COVID-19 during the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan—months before the official pandemic timeline. The Biden administration kept the report from the public for over two years, despite a legal requirement to release it.

Key Details:

• A December 2022 Pentagon report shows seven U.S. service members showed COVID-like symptoms after attending the 2019 Wuhan games.
• The Biden administration withheld the report, which was required by law to be made public in 2022, until it was quietly posted online in March 2025.
• Evidence contradicts Biden officials’ 2021 claims and adds weight to theories that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab before December 2019.

Diving Deeper:

The Biden administration withheld a critical Pentagon report for more than two years, one that sheds new light on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, seven U.S. military service members may have contracted COVID-19 during or shortly after the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan, China—a full two months before China officially acknowledged the outbreak.

The report, completed in December 2022, was mandated for public release by the National Defense Authorization Act. Yet, the administration only passed it to select Congressional committees and failed to make it publicly accessible as required. It wasn’t until March 2025 that the report quietly appeared on a Defense Department site under a section dedicated to “quality-of-life” issues—far from public view.

This revelation directly contradicts claims made by Biden administration officials in 2021, including then-Defense Department spokesman John Kirby, who stated there was “no knowledge” of any infections among the U.S. participants. The Trump administration had also denied early on that troops were tested or showed symptoms, citing the timing of the games before China’s outbreak announcement.

Held just miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology—where controversial, U.S.-funded gain-of-function research was conducted—the 2019 games have long drawn suspicion from national security and public health experts. Prominent biologist Dr. Richard Ebright told the Free Beacon the report confirms that COVID was already circulating and likely leaked from the Wuhan lab: “This new information strengthens U.S. and allied intelligence data.”

Adding more context, athletes from European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy also reported flu-like symptoms in Wuhan, describing the city at the time as unusually empty—a “ghost town.” All seven American service members recovered quickly, and the Pentagon has not revealed when it first became aware of the cases.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) called the report’s concealment an “outrage,” noting it directly undermines the long-promoted narrative that COVID began at a Wuhan wet market in December 2019. “Taxpayers deserve to know the truth,” she said. “This report should have been made public immediately.”

Congressional Republicans have consistently asserted that the Wuhan games were among the first super spreader events of the pandemic. In 2021, House Foreign Affairs Republicans issued findings supporting that theory. Meanwhile, multiple federal agencies—including the CIA, FBI, and Energy Department—now publicly believe COVID most likely originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s goal was to have major trading partners agree to negotiate after Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for many countries after dozens reached out to the administration.

Trump announced the pause via a Wednesday post on Truth Social that also announced substantial increases in tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, saying 75 countries had asked to talk. Bessent said during a press event held alongside White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that Trump had obtained “maximum leverage” to get trading partners to negotiate with the April 2 announcement of reciprocal tariffs.

“This was his strategy all along,” Bessent told reporters during an impromptu press conference at the White House. “And that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They, they responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors. And, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate. It wasn’t a hard message: Don’t retaliate, things will turn out well.”

WATCH:

China imposed retaliatory tariffs on American exports to the communist country Wednesday, imposing an 84% tariff on U.S. goods after Trump responded to a 34% tariff by taking American tariffs to 104%.

“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump said. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

“They kept escalating and escalating, and now they have 125% tariffs that will be effective immediately,” Bessent said during the press conference.

Bessent said that China’s actions would not harm the United States as much as it would their own economy.

“We will see what China does,” Bessent said. “But what I am certain of, what I’m certain of, is that what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours, because they have an export-driven, flood the world with cheap export model, and the rest of the world now understands.”

The Dow Jones Industrial average closed up 2,962.86 points Wednesday, with the NASDAQ climbing by 1,755.84 points and the S&P 500 rising 446.05 points, according to FoxBusiness.