Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) offered tough talk on China, including its role in spreading a virus that has killed thousands around the world and holding the United States hostage by controlling the global drug supply, in a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.
Marlow opened the interview with a portion of Blackburn’s hard-hitting speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, where she called for stopping Chinese thuggery:
This may seem like something that is too large or too risky an undertaking, but we have already paid dearly for our reliance on Chinese drug manufacturers, and it’s not going to stop because that vulnerability is leverage in the hands of madmen in Beijing who seek nothing but power and will go to any lengths to acquire that power. They don’t care who they hurt. It’s clear with this global pandemic. They don’t care if it is innocent people that are sick or maybe even that lose their life. And they defy us, they defy us when we try to stop them.
It’s time that we rise to the challenge and that we return this supply chain.
Blackburn told Breitbart News Daily that China’s control of the global drug supply and it using it against its enemies, including the United States, has been put in the spotlight after the coronavirus took root in Central China before spreading around the world.
“China caused this,” Blackburn said. “They withheld the information. They erroneously blamed it on the United States Army.”
“We should hold them to account for what they have caused — that created a global pandemic and destabilized the health and the financial systems and the food supply of people all over the globe,” Blackburn said.
The United States should also, Blackburn said, put a halt to its dependence on China by bringing the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals back to this country.
“The best way for us to do that is to make America manufacture again,” Blackburn said, referring to the Securing America’s Medicine Cabinet Act, which she and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are proposing.
Blackburn has dubbed the bill MAMA — Make America Manufacture Again.
The bill also calls for building up the nation’s pharmaceutical stockpile and developing an emerging threats and technology division at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It also would establish Centers of Excellence at universities to partner with U.S. pharmaceutical companies to strengthen the nation’s drug infrastructure.
The interview also included a discussion about China’s efforts to dominate global technology and the need for the U.S. to thwart that effort.
Both Marlow and Blackburn said they see a silver lining in this current crisis, with Marlow saying it has “awakened a sleeping giant” and Blackburn saying we must move forward based on lessons learned.
“Let’s never let China have control of the global economy again,” Blackburn said.
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