On Wednesday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson pointed to evidence that the government officials had lied about the origins and timeline of COVID-19.

The Fox News host reminded viewers the government used the pandemic to take extraordinary measures, and all while the Chinese government did not acknowledge the existence of the virus until December 31, 2019.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: News about a global fraud that began long before Election Day here and has since ruined millions of lives, killed hundreds of thousands, and by the way, without question deeply affected the outcome of our presidential election here in the United States: the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s not what we thought it was. We’ve been lied to.

The latest evidence comes from samples collected during Red Cross blood drives last year, and now analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control. In a study published on Monday, researchers tested 39 blood samples from the States of California, Washington and Oregon. That blood was collected between December 13 and December 16, 2019.

At the time, no one in the United States had heard of COVID-19. The Chinese government didn’t even acknowledge its existence until December 31. And yet every one of those samples just tested has come back positive for the coronavirus antibodies — all of them.

Keep in mind that antibodies don’t develop for at least a week after exposure to the virus. That means the Wuhan coronavirus was being transmitted throughout the American population far earlier, possibly months earlier than we were told.

What does that mean exactly? And how did it happen?

We don’t know yet how it happened, but we know for certain that it did. The CDC has found dozens more positive samples from blood tests taken beginning at the end of December, and they found them in many other parts of the country, across the country: Michigan, Iowa, and Massachusetts.

Analysis of tests in other countries has shown even earlier spread of the virus. Scientists now know the virus, the coronavirus spread to Italy as early as last September and to South America two months later in November.

So clearly what we have been told for almost a year about the origins of the coronavirus is not true.

Why are we just learning this now a month after a presidential election? We’ve had reliable antibody tests since the summer. So no one thought to test Red Cross blood samples until now? Why weren’t elected officials demanding a coherent account of where this virus — this virus that has changed American history forever — where this virus came from? How it got to the United States and how it spread through our population? Why don’t we know that yet? Because nobody seemed to care.

Our elected officials were too busy enjoying their newfound power. They were shutting down small businesses, arresting people for kayaking without masks.

Back in January, 11 months ago, the Department of Homeland Security warned that American airports could be ground zero for a new pandemic. But Congress yawned. They were occupied that day.

On January 24, a day when these blood samples now prove the virus had already spread across the continent, the Trump administration held a classified briefing on the coronavirus for the entire U.S. Senate, but only 14 senators showed up for it. Why was that?

Well, that briefing was held on the very same day as the deadline for senators to submit their questions for impeachment. So the people in charge of protecting the country were not worried about coronavirus. Instead, they were standing in front of their mirrors rehearsing their star turns, the moment when they could finally confront Alan Dershowitz about the dreaded Zelensky phone call.

Now they’re claiming the pandemic caught them completely by surprise. How did they get away with that? They get away with it because our public health establishment gives them cover and has all year.

Two days before that classified Senate briefing that only 14 senators showed up for, Dr. Tony Fauci went on television to reassure Americans they could relax. Calm down, America. You can trust the Chinese government. If the Chinese are telling us that this virus jumped from a pangolin in a wet market, and no one even knew it existed until New Year’s Eve and we’re doing our very best to contain it, then that’s what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: China has been known to fiddle with their stats before. Do you trust what they are telling us about this illness?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: From what I can see right now, they really are being much, much more transparent than what happened with SARS where they really kept back information for a while. It was embarrassing to them.

They’re really transparent now. They put the sequence of the virus up on the public database right away. So in that respect, they’ve been transparent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “They’re really transparent now,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci. Now, in a well-functioning country, a line like that would make certain that you never work in public policy again. Transparent? Transparently dishonest. We know that for certain.

Chinese officials are now claiming the virus came to their country from somewhere else, it arrived in frozen food; possibly as a bioweapon staged by the U.S. military. They’re not saying that in secret, they’re saying it on social media.

But so far, Twitter hasn’t bothered to fact check that claim. Like Tony Fauci, Silicon Valley trusts China — trust China far more than they trust you.

Ron Klain trusts China, too. Ron Klain is Joe Biden’s pick for White House Chief of Staff.

On January 27th of this year, Klain told AXIOS that China has been quote, “More transparent and more candid than it has been during past outbreaks.” Why did Ron Klain think that? Possibly because the World Health Organization told him to think so.

On January 8, the W.H.O. funded of course by the Chinese government released a similar message. Here it is, quote, “Preliminary identification of a novel virus in a short period of time is a notable achievement and demonstrates China’s increased capacity to manage new outbreaks.” It was like a press release.

In other words, the rest of us ought to be thanking the government of China for the blessing of COVID-19. Much appreciated.

A week later, the W.H.O. was back with more demonstrably untrue propaganda straight from their overlords in Beijing. Quote, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” That was yet another dangerous lie that without question cost American lives. But Twitter didn’t fact check that either.

Instead, the American media as a group dutifully amplified the message. China did nothing wrong, they told us. Anyone who suggests otherwise, who suggests this thoroughly Chinese virus came from China is by definition a racist. Whose fault is it that Americans are dying from the virus? It’s America’s fault. It’s your fault. Stop asking questions.

And by the way, they’re still saying that. So thorough was the news blackout on the origins of this virus, the Chinese origins that you had to go to Australian television to find out what was actually happening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the very beginning throughout December, it was spreading. And we now know it was spreading human to human. But the official line of the Chinese government was that this was all related to an animal market, and once they closed the market, it would all go away.

QUESTION: Did they know differently at that time?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely. Because they were seeing cases coming into the hospitals that had nothing whatsoever to do with that animal market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It had nothing whatsoever to do with that animal market. Viewers of Australian television knew that. Viewers of American television had no idea. American TV channels were pursuing little packages on the pangolin. What’s a pangolin? It had nothing to do with the pangolin or bats or the wet market.

You’ll remember a few weeks ago, we interviewed a Chinese virologist, Dr. Li-Meng Yan on the show, and she fled her country with a message for us. This virus she said came from a government lab in China. She said she knew that.

In her own country, she would have been punished, possibly killed for saying so. So she came here to the land of the free. What did she find? She found her words censored by American tech companies working in tandem with a tyrant she fled.

Once again you had to go to “60 Minutes” Australia to learn what was happening to people like Dr. Li-Meng Yan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As China now tries to rewrite history and claim it was transparent all along, a final nail in the coffin of their lie.

Just two weeks ago, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr. Ai Fen also went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world. She has now disappeared. Whereabouts unknown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Internal documents now prove that Chinese officials knew they were facing a coronavirus pandemic, something they’d never seen before, but they hid that information from the world and they arrested those who tried to report it.

More critically, millions of people continued to travel through the City of Wuhan in Central China, the epicenter of the pandemic. Then more than a million Chinese citizens flew here to the United States, more than a million.

It wasn’t until January 20 that the President of China, Xi Jinping finally admitted the virus could be contagious, it could spread from person to person. Now, what is that? At best, it’s criminal negligence. At worst, it’s something like mass murder.

But no said the World Health Organization, in fact, it was just more evidence that the Chinese Communist Party was doing an extraordinary job managing the pandemic and the American media hardly agreed.

Watch this amazing clip from late March.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BRUCE AYLWARD, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Right now, there’s very, very few countries that have actually been able to reverse this epidemic and bring their case down to a very low level. And in fact, the only country that has done that is China.

It was the passion, the diligence, the sense of responsibility, the seriousness of the average Chinese and I want to use that term very carefully because they weren’t average. They’re extraordinary people, but they were driven by a sense of collective responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the passion and diligence and sense of responsibility and seriousness of the Chinese, they’re extraordinary people. It’s in the blood. They’re driven and we want to quote this verbatim because it’s important for the rest of us to learn from our mistakes. The Chinese are driven by, quote, “a sense of collective responsibility.” Contrast that with us, fat, lazy, Trump-voting American, so selfish and short-sighted, we demand to go to church on Sundays or go out to dinner with our families once in a while. And then deservedly we get sick and die.

Not Xi Jinping and the obedient communist nation he leads, they found a better way.

That’s the message from our media. It’s the message from our health establishment. It’s the message from our elected officials, and it has been for almost a year.

But it’s not the whole story. We know that now. We’re still not even close to knowing what really happened. We should find out.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor