Original subtitles

Nice to meet you.

- Okay. - Yes.

[Sacha Baron Cohen] In Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,

I lived with two conspiracy theorists,

in character, for several days.

- Vaccines. - Bill Gates.

- Mail-in ballots. - Chinese virus.

-Drink their blood. -Not nice.

[Sacha] The myths and misinformation

they shared with Borat

fuel a dangerous rhetoric

that is tearing apart societies

in front of our eyes.

In this series of episodes,

we'll introduce Jim and Jerry to world-leading experts,

doctors and academics, who will address

some of the most dangerous conspiracies head-on

and debunk them face-to-face.

Hello, Jim and Jerry.

This is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

[Jim] That is a virus

that was developed in China,

Wuhan, China.

They made a-a virus that kills people.

So that means that you have to be locked down.

You can't go out.

Your Democrats are trying to brainwash people.

They're saying that we shouldn't be at work.

And I feel like, that they helped the Chinese create this.

[Jim] Correct.

Democrats with Obama,

and I think it goes back to the Clintons,

when they were also in office.

[narrator] This conversation contains several

conspiracy theories that have circulated since the onset

of the coronavirus pandemic.

From the moment the outbreak began, many influential figures

began to spread unfounded accusations.

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton sent a tweet

connecting the coronavirus to a Wuhan laboratory.

In India, scientists speculated that the virus

may be genetically engineered.

In China, theories on social media

claimed that the U.S. had manufactured the virus

as a weapon.

As the virus spread, so did the finger-pointing.

Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners that medical experts,

like Dr. Fauci, are Clinton sympathizers

who want to get rid of Trump.

Representative Matt Gaetz tweets out

a Washington Examiner article amplifying

the Obama-Wuhan connection story.

As the death toll rose in the U.S.,

Donald Trump blamed China and its people

while simultaneously downplaying the coronavirus.

Even after scientists confirmed that the virus was not man-made,

conspiracies continued to expand exponentially.

- There we go. - There you are.

I'm excited to meet you.

Excited to meet you.

My first movie stars I've ever met. [laughs]

- Yeah. We just hang out, man. - Yeah?

So, I'm Jennifer. Did they tell you anything about me?

- You're a doctor or something, right? - [newswoman] I'm joined

by Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School.

Dr. Nuzzo, great to have you back on the NewsHour.

When I think back to who had it right, it's you.

You know, this pandemic's been so hard,

but the best thing, for me, has been to meet people

that I wouldn't otherwise get to meet

- and to share what I know. - [Jim] Right.

And I think it's really important for us to have

- conversations about tough issues... - Yes.

and share information.

Okay, let me ask you this, then.

The reason being, is it because the Chinese mutated it?

So, we have no evidence that that happened.

In fact, um, virologists who have looked very closely

at the genetic sequence of the virus have concluded

that it was, very likely, not engineered by a human.

That it most likely originated from bats.

And whether it went directly from bats to humans,

or if it went from bats to another animal,

we don't, uh, fully know yet.

Well, the scientist that, uh... the first lady that took

that out of the laboratory died from it, so...

Yeah, so let's, let's talk about that a little bit.

- Um... - Okay.

Because I, I heard those stories, too,

and there's actually no evidence that that happened.

There was, I know, one woman who, um,

published a story alleging a number of things

that have since been debunked by, by actual scientists.

Um, the thing about these viruses,

these respiratory viruses, they move fast,

and it's really hard for any country to stop them

from spreading outside of their borders.

That's just how these things are, and I just really worry

when we start pointing fingers in the absence of evidence.

[Trump] Some important developments

in our war against the Chinese virus.

I have to call it where it came from. It did come from China.

So I think it's a very accurate term.

Kung flu.

- I can name... - [crowd murmuring]

19 different versions of names.

- The Chinese virus. - [crowd cheering]

[woman news reporter] Why is this a global competition to you

if every day Americans are still losing their lives?

Well, they're losing their lives everywhere in the world,

and maybe that's a question you should ask China.

That China focus

really put blinders on us and our response.

Such that the virus could be coming in from other places,

and we wouldn't have been able to detect it

and we weren't able to stop it.

And so, the huge surge of cases in New York

wasn't due to an introduction from China.

It was due to an introduction from Europe.

Conspiracy theories can often have real consequences.

When Europe was hit by the Bubonic Plague--

was in 1348 or '49--

this is blamed on Jews allegedly poisoning the wells,

and there were horrific scenes

where Jews were burned alive in the town squares,

but that kind of conspiracist belief has continued

to, to the present day, as we can see.

It's impossible to explain why on earth

the Chinese would want to do this,

given the fact that it had a serious impact on their,

on their own country, but that's a kind of bogeyman

that emerges at the center of conspiracy theories.

Soon as that spreads and reaches

people who are racially prejudiced against Chinese,

you get physical attacks.

[newswoman] Asian Americans are facing discrimination

not felt since the Japanese American internment camps

during World War II.

Do you not think it would be useful for, at this point,

for Donald Trump to say, "You know what,

leave Asian Americans alone."

- Yes, I agree with that. - That statement...

- Do you not think he should be saying that? - Yes.

That statement could be said very clearly by anybody.

Yep, I agree with that.

But by, by, by Donald Trump, who called it the "China virus."

The problem is that all political sides pretend opinions

are facts and then use it to achieve their aim because they

can't be bothered to actually argue the point properly.

I have no doubt that, if there weren't

so much misinformation out there, we could have saved

tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of lives.

♪ ♪

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