I'm John Batchel.

This is the new John Batchel show with Josh Rogan of the Washington Post, the Global Opinions columnist.

Most importantly, right now, the author of the new book, Chaos Under Heaven, Trump,

She, and the Battle for the

21st Century.

This is a story of 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 that Merch establishes what we know and don't know

about the pandemic, about the threat to national security here and with our allies and the threat to planet

earth right now, what we know and what we don't know. There are ironies of plenty here

because Josh is telling the story of the Trump policy towards China, with China, that was

looking to in some way resolve itself in January of 2020.

The Phase 1 trade deal.

History is not neat, and it can be one thing after another.

On the 15th, that Phase 1 deal with handshakes all around is sealed in Washington,

and the Chinese negotiators get on the plane to go home to Beijing.

The day before, however, at the National Security Council meeting, it was held at the,

the National Security Council meeting at the policy coordination committee level,

that is, the principals were not there, the coordinators were there.

There was a report of a strange new flu from China, and one of the people attending that meeting is Matthew Pottinger.

We've met him before.

What did they know on January 14th about this flu, Josh? Because I mentioned that I had spoken of that flu on January 6th to my colleague Gordon Chang when we did

a show that night. It was reported out of the South China Morning Post as an unusual flu described as

pneumonia-like. What did they know on the 14th?

...