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Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Fox and Friends to discuss his bill to sanction China for their failure to investigate the origin of COVID-19, his request for President Joe Biden to allow Cameron Kinley, a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, to temporarily delay his military service to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and more. See below for highlights and watch the video here. 

On Rubio’s bill to sanction China for their failure to investigate the origin of COVID-19, the COVID Act of 2021:
 
“We already know enough about what happened in China to tell you they’ve done something wrong, which is they haven’t allowed the world to fully understand how this thing began and they’ve covered it up. Now what it actually leads to, that’s what the world needs to know, because the next one could be far worse than this. 
 
“Coronavirus is terrible. Covid has been terrible. It has killed people, you’ve seen what it’s done to our society and country and the world. The next one could be much deadlier, much more disruptive. People forget all this research that China does is still going on right now. As we speak, they are doing it, today. It doesn’t stop. It continues. 
 
On the White House’s plans to “internationally isolate” China if they prevent a through investigation: 
 
“I think there’s a couple problems there. The first is most of the countries around the world think the way I do, like I just said. If you went around and asked them they would all say the same thing, they just won’t say it publicly, because all these countries, China has enormous leverage on them economically. They need China economically, they are smaller economies and so forth. 
 
“So it takes a very forceful position on the part of the United States for other countries to be willing to step forward. There are exceptions, Australia being one of them and a few others. But generally speaking – look at Europe – it’s not that these countries agree with China, it’s that they don’t want to speak out, because they don’t want to get hit with their own sanctions, they don’t want to get hit economically. But they need forceful American leadership in order to make these things happen. 
 
“I don’t think you’ve seen forceful American leadership on anything from the Biden administration so far, much less this.” 
 
On Rubio’s call to hold China accountable for COVID-19: 
 
“All we’re asking for is that China open up and allow a full investigation. Because this is not just about punishing China for what happened in the past. This is about preventing it from happening again. For all we know, at this very moment, the next great pandemic is being developed inside of a Chinese laboratory, and they are doing it because they want to develop a vaccine or a cure, but the thing infects somebody that works in that lab and they take it out, and now the whole world gets hit. 
 
“I’ll remind everybody, coronavirus is bad, [but] there are worse things out there that could leak out if that’s the way this happened. The world needs to know because this is not a China issue. This is a global issue.” 
 
On scientists holding back on the “lab leak theory”:
 
“Sometimes these guys like to play god, and so they want to do their research because they know what’s good for humanity, they convince themselves of the exalted position that they are in and in and so what happens is now they are fearful – ‘oh, my gosh, we don’t want this thing linked back to the kind of research we do, so let’s do everything possible to sort of steer people away from it and cover it up,’ and that’s what [Peter Daszak] did. He rallied a bunch of scientists who didn’t disclose their conflicts, and the Lancet had to come back later and force many people to disclose their conflicts, including him.” 
 
On Rubio’s request for President Joe Biden to allow Cameron Kinley, a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, to temporarily delay his military service in order for him to pursue his dream of playing in the National Football League (NFL) for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 
 
“I don’t know yet [if Biden will sign the waiver]. The White House has been non- committal, so we don’t know yet. But here is the bottom line. People got to do it last year. There are people playing in the NFL – Malcolm Perry that came out of the Navy plays for the Miami Dolphins. So this sounds arbitrary… If you graduated last year they let you do it, if you graduate this year you’re not [allowed]. He’s not saying he’s not going to do his service – he will. 
 
“I also think this is good for the service academies. There’s a lot of young men and women who hope they might have a career in athletics who say, ‘look in the off chance that I get drafted or I get a chance to play professional sports, the reason why I don’t want to go to the academy is I have to forfeit that right now, four years ahead of time.’ 
 
“So I think that allowing this young man to play isn’t just fair, because he’s going to do his service, he’s going to live up to his commitment. But allowing him – it is not just fair,  it’s good for the academies. It’s going to make it easier for me and my colleagues here, to find young men and women to step forward, and be willing to be nominated and go to the service academies.”