Secret recording reveals top GOP senator privately warned of deadly coronavirus weeks ago — even as he kept public in the dark

Three weeks ago in late February, right-wing media — from radio host Rush Limbaugh to Fox News and Fox Business — was full of Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump insisting that the mainstream media were exaggerating the threat of coronavirus in order to harm Donald Trump’s presidency (Fox, like Trump, has since shifted its tone). But it was also three weeks ago, on February 27, that Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was privately warning about how dangerous coronavirus was. And National Public Radio (NPR) has obtained a recording of Burr’s disturbing assertions.

According to NPR’s Tim Mak, Burr addressed the COVID-19 threat at a private luncheon organized by a North Carolina group called the Tarheel Circle. And Burr, in the recording, is heard warning that coronavirus is “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we’ve seen in recent history. It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

Burr’s comments, according to NPR, “raise questions” about why that private audience was getting a “a more frank assessment than the general public” was getting at the time. The recording, Mak noted during a March 19 appearance on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” was provided by “an attendee who became alarmed about Burr’s dire warnings” and “began to record.” Continue reading.