American “mainstream media” often act as apologists for China’s Communist Party, noted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), offering his remarks on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Alex Marlow while discussing the coronavirus outbreak.

Marlow invited Cotton’s assessment of America’s news media “parroting Beijing propaganda” to their audiences “as if it’s true.

“It’s very disappointing to see the number of mainstream media outlets that simply repeat Chinese ommunist propaganda,” replied Cotton, highlighting Chinese authorities’ claim of the coronavirus being a biological weapon deployed by the U.S. government.

News media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, and NBC — which all market themselves as politically objective and nonpartisan — forwarded China’s public relations measures, including the Chinese state’s unverifiable claims of the coronavirus’s spread within its borders. Many U.S. news media operations have praised China’s conduct in addressing the viral outbreak while framing President Donald Trump’s as incompetent and deceptive.

Cotton said, “Our mainstream media wants to criticize Donald Trump or me or others for calling it ‘the China virus’ or ‘the Wuhan coronavirus’ when in fact [Chinese authorities] are the ones responsible.”

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Cotton continued, “It’s really disappointing. Now, there are some notable exceptions. Even some of the institutions that you and I hold in most disfavor do important work. I would recommend to your readers a great feature from New York Times last Sunday that visualizes the move of this virus from Wuhan across China and then across the world. It really kind of crystallizes what the Chinese Communist Party did, but too often our mainstream media outlets are apologists for the Chinese Communist Party, much like Walter Durante was for the Soviet Union back in the last century.”

Blame for the coronavirus pandemic lies with the Chinese Communist Party, maintained Cotton.

“Occasionally on television, we see people laying blame on politicians for this virus,” Cotton stated. “Some folks on CNN want to blame Donald Trump.” America politicians are not to blame for the coronavirus, he added. “The virus is to blame, and the virus is the responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party for covering it up and not getting ahead of it in December and unleashing it on the world.

The coronavirus pandemic provides an impetus for economic disengagement from China and renewal of American manufacturing of “critical goods,” Cotton determined.

“There has to be a reckoning with China,” Cotton said. “We’ve got to stop our dependence on China, especially for critical goods. It’s one thing to have lawn furniture or toys made in China. It’s another thing to have our most basic and essential pharmaceuticals [made in China. Most Americans — until this virus hit — didn’t realize that we were totally dependent on China for things like antibiotics and penicillin, ibuprofen, [and] acetaminophen.”

Cotton described legislative measures he is drafting to reduce American dependency on Chinese pharmaceutical and medical exports, including a mandate on federal agencies to purchase U.S.-made products to restore domestic production on such goods.

“[My legislation] creates a market for U.S.-made pharmaceuticals by saying the federal government agency that purchases drugs — Medicare, Medicaid, the military, the VA, and others — can only buy American-made products,” explained Cotton. “It gives incentives to build that manufacturing capability here, [including] letting companies write off the expense of building a new factory … but then it also has the stick which says if you’re in China, you’re going to have to get out. Period.”

“We have to bring back life-saving manufacturing from China,” concluded Cotton. “It’s going to have to be much broader than that, though. We can’t continue to depend on China for anything that is critical to our nation, that’s a terrible mistake we’ve made over the last 30 years. Most Americans realize it’s time to rectify that mistake.”

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