DNI Tulsi Gabbard tells podcaster Megyn Kelly she's working with HHS to uncover Covid-19's origins, end gain-of-function research

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard is working with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gabbard discussed the investigation during an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show on Thursday. She told Kelly that she believes the US government helped fund dangerous virus-altering experiments, known commonly as “gain-of-function” research, that could have led to the outbreak.

“In the case of the Wuhan lab, as well as many other bio labs around the world, was actually US funded, and leads to this dangerous kind of research that in many examples has resulted in either a pandemic or some other major health crisis,” Gabbard said.

“In order to prevent another Covid-like pandemic or another major health incident that could affect us in the world, we have to end this gain-of-function research,” she continued. 

Gain-of-function research involves modifying pathogens to be more contagious and deadly for the supposed purpose of studying them. Gabbard has argued the high-risk experiments arent worth the potential world altering danger and likely contributed to the global pandemic.

Gabbards comments come after the Trump administration relaunched the federal COVID-19 information website, COVID.gov, moving the focus away from vaccines to instead making the case that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. The site outlines evidence pointing the a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and criticizes former NIH official Anthony Fauci for allegedly covering up key information.

A senior administration official told Fox News on the day the revamped site went live, “This administration prioritizes transparency over all else. The American people deserve to know the truth about the Covid pandemic and we will always find ways to reach communities with that message.”

The updated COVID.gov page lists five claims to support the lab leak theory. These include the assertion that “the virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature,” and that “data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans,” unlike previous pandemics.

It also states that Wuhan houses China’s top SARS research facility, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research “at inadequate biosafety levels.” The site claims researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were ill with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, before the virus was linked to the city’s wet market. “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” the page reads.

Federal agencies have not been in full agreement on the virus’s origin. In 2023, the FBI said it supported the lab leak theory with moderate confidence, while the Department of Energy said it favored that explanation with low confidence. Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Council leaned toward a natural origin for the virus under the Biden administration. Gabbard has rejected that theory.