House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Sunday’s “Kasie DC” on MSNBC weighed in on the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

While many believe China has been a bad actor in covering up the pandemic and downplaying the severity of the virus, Schiff told host Kasie Hunt he does not think the United States can “rely” on what China is telling others regarding their death count.

“We can’t rely I think on the numbers that China’s giving out — both because I think the Chinese leadership probably wants to present their model as the successful model and given all the problems the United States is having, this is among other things, a propaganda coup for China to be sending medical equipment to the United States instead of the other way around, but also because historically when there have been viruses or other health or other problems in China, there are people that lie to the Chinese government, lie to their own government, lie to their own people because they are afraid of retribution by the officials higher up,” Schiff advised. So, I don’t think we can rely on what we hear from China.

He added the United States could not rely on other countries like Russia or Iran, who he speculated could be “misrepresenting how many people are infected.”

“We can’t rely, for example, on what the Russians say in Russia,” Schiff continued. “We can’t rely on what the Iranians are saying about what goes on in Iran. And because the virus knows no borders, it’s important for us to find out the best we can where the truth lies in terms of where the virus is and what the impacts are.”

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