CHINA/COVID-19/MIKE POMPEO: “Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in his forthcoming memoir that former President Trump told him to ‘shut the hell up’ about China in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, Semafor reported on Thursday…
Xi had warned Trump on the call that his secretary of State was endangering the recently signed ‘phase one’ trade deal, which sought to rein in the trade war between Washington and Beijing.
The call came one day after Pompeo created a stir at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven, accusing China of engaging in a disinformation campaign on COVID-19 and calling for the virus to be named after the Chinese city of Wuhan where it was first detected.”
-Julia Shapero, “Pompeo says Trump told him to ‘shut the hell up’ about China,” thehill.com, January 19, 2023