The Chinese government’s mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic from its start at a wet market in Wuhan has shown its overall incompetence and has put us all in danger, Buck Sexton, the host of “The Buck Sexton Show” said on Tuesday.

China has been widely criticized of hiding key metrics of the disease and its early spread in Hubei province. But Sexton said there was likely a method to Beijing’s madness.

He said the fact that the Chinese Communist Party allowed these wet markets to stay open and sell exotic live animals for meat and then cover up the virus is proof that “their incompetence was a threat to their power.”

He said the government intimidates its population and is a practicing "thugocracy."

Bloomberg, citing three U.S. officials, reported last week that Beijing purposely concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country. The report said that China methodically underreported its case amount and death toll.

President Trump himself said at a recent press conference that the numbers being produced by China “seem to be a little on the light side.”

Sexton said that many in the U.S. news media appear to be more than willing to “carry the water” for the Chinese Communist Party. NBC News, for example, faced backlash on Tuesday over a story that compared the U.S.’s recent surge in deaths to the reported gains being made in China.

The NBC News tweeted out, “U.S. reports 1,264 coronavirus deaths over 24 hours. Meanwhile, in China, where the pandemic broke out, not a single new coronavirus death was reported.”

The tweet was mocked on Twitter. Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, tweeted, “NBC bought it. Hook, line and sinker. Well done China. Well done.”