Sen. Ted Cruz

And he pointed out that

we're not nearly prepared enough to defend against that kind of threat.

And I think that's when you talk about the kind of things that we ought to be worried about, those are the kind of threats that I think are really dangerous.

And by the way, he talked about also the ability to bioengineer a virus or some germ that could potentially target

individual races, could target families, could target people.

And so he said, you know, look, do you think if the Ayatollah could create a virus that would kill Jews, that he wouldn't be eager to release it?

And you know what?

Maybe his scientists are wrong and it doesn't just kill Jews, it kills everybody.

Like that kind of danger is something

We are in a dangerous world, but when he raised it, all of us... Now, look, the United States government is doing a lot of research to combat against that, but I think we need to be doing more because that kind of asymmetric attack has the potential to do enormous damage.

Particularly because...

I think we often overestimate what we know.

So let's take COVID.

I think it is overwhelmingly likely that the COVID virus escaped from a Chinese government lab.

I think it is likely, although I wouldn't say overwhelmingly likely, that it was bioengineered in that lab, that they used gain-of-function research to make it more contagious, to increase its ability to impact humans.

And I think it's entirely possible they were doing so in what they thought was a defensive way to learn about how to protect humans.

I have not seen any compelling evidence that the Chinese deliberately released COVID.

although I haven't seen evidence one way or the other, but given the very shoddy protections, particularly at the Wuhan Institute for Virology, I think what is most likely is there was a lab leak where you had lab workers who were infected and then went into the community and other people got infected.

And then I think the Chinese government, in fact, I know the Chinese government, affirmatively covered it up and was complicit in its spread.

But there...