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Morning Greatness: NCMI Director Contradicts ABC News Story About November Chinese Virus Warning

Good Thursday morning.

Here is what’s on the president’s agenda today:

  • The president has lunch with the Secretary of State
  • President Trump participates in a phone call with Mental Health Leaders and Advocates
  • 5:00PM Members of the Coronavirus Task Force hold a press briefing

I talked to Derek Hunter on today’s The Daily Daily Caller Podcast. Have a listen!

NCMI Director contradicts ABC’s anonymously sourced fable that Trump knew about virus in November

The resistance is test marketing various anti-Trump narratives about the Chinese virus pandemic and yesterday, ABC News found some sources (or activated their derp state operatives) to allege that the intel community briefed Trump about the deadly pathogen all the way back in November of 2019. Ergo, Trump knew in advance and basically DGAF. Of course this makes no sense, why would he do that, what advantage would he have ignoring the deadly Chinese virus?

Here’s what ABC News reported:

“U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.”

“Two officials familiar with the document’s contents” reportedly told ABC that those concerns “were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI).”

And more:

The sources told the news outlet that a “detailed explanation of the problem” appeared in President Donald Trump’s “Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January.”

“The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” a source reportedly told ABC. “But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.”

Fast forward and now we learn “Dr. R. Shane Day, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), issued a statement on Wednesday countering ABC News’ claim that his agency laid out coronavirus concerns in a November intelligence report.”

Here’s what Dr. Day had to say: “As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,” the statement read. “However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.

Fox News reports, “The DIA and NCMI spent the past 24 hours going over anything that could be related to the alleged assessment, but failed to find anything, a defense official told Fox News.”

Same sh!t, different day.

Miscellaneous Coronavirus news:
Tucker Unpacks Connections Between Comcast’s Theme Park Deal In China And Favorable Coverage
Rep. Thomas Massie wants lawmakers back in DC for votes on coronavirus funds
Blaming the WHO and China Is Not Scapegoating
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro calls WHO chief one of China’s ‘proxies’ at the UN
Democrats want $500B more in crisis relief, setting up Senate showdown
Lawmaker calls out airlines over rejected refunds: ‘We bailed out your company’
DHS to houses of worship: Start planning now for life after COVID-19 crisis
Dr. Gupta explains concerns over medicines touted by Trump
Massachusetts attorney general investigates veterans nursing home, site of deadly coronavirus outbreak
Birx says drop in US death projection is due to Americans changing their behavior through social distancing
Meat plants are shutting down as workers get sick
Amid coronavirus, Trump seizes chance to carry out a long-desired purge of government watchdogs
Barr disappointed by partisan attacks leveled at President Trump, says media on a ‘jihad’ against hydroxychloroquine
Pharmaceutical executive claims FDA ‘red tape’ holding up coronavirus antibodies test
Strategic National Stockpile nearly out of coronavirus N95 masks, other protective equipment, HHS says
Defense official says media reports about November coronavirus intel assessment are false
Cash-strapped rural hospitals struggle to stay open, brace for coronavirus
Johns Hopkins doctor hopes coronavirus blood plasma therapy ‘can save people’, ‘stem the suffering’
CBP to seize exports of coronavirus masks, gloves, PPE, to ensure US doesn’t need them
Verma-Azar feud extends into coronavirus era
Senate Democrats Say Trump Admin ‘Blatantly Misinterpreting’ The Law With Emergency Border Closure
Fauci: I don’t think we should shake hands ‘ever again’
Trump says he’ll look into small business loan program restricting casinos
From fine to flailing – rapid health declines in COVID-19 patients jar doctors, nurses
Congressional Black Caucus calls on CDC to report racial data
Trump rips WHO coronavirus response: ‘Everything seems to be China’s way’
Coronavirus was spreading in NYC weeks before first case, researchers say
20 retailers giving back during the coronavirus pandemic
Fake cops are stopping drivers for violating coronavirus stay-at-home orders
More than 50,000 Americans flown home to US as the coronavirus pandemic rages around globe
Smokers more at risk in coronavirus fight, study says
The conspiracy linking 5G to coronavirus just will not die
A Georgia bar owner removed $3,714 worth of bills stapled to the walls to give to her unemployed staff
Colorado Democrat believes Trump awarded ventilators as political favor to vulnerable GOP senator

Other morsels:
Former Trump campaign adviser denied campaign was involved in DNC hack in recorded conversation
RIP. Linda Tripp, whose tapes exposed Clinton scandal, dies at 70
U.S. fines Rite Aid over improper sales of pseudoephedrine
Sanders quits U.S. presidential race, setting up Biden battle with Trump
Awful. Body of Robert F. Kennedy’s great-grandson recovered from Chesapeake Bay
Democrats salivate over Obama coming off sidelines

And that’s all I’ve got, now go put your mask on!

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About Liz Sheld

Liz Sheld is the senior news editor at American Greatness. She is a veteran political strategist and pollster who has worked on campaigns and public interest affairs. Liz has written at Breitbart and The Federalist, as well as at PJ Media, where she wrote "The Morning Briefing." In her spare time, she shoots sporting clays and watches documentaries.

Photo: (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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