Stephen Kruiser
The Morning Briefing
May 8, 2025
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 5 to halt federal funding for a type of biomedical research in China and Iran, aiming to prevent the development of another pandemic like COVID-19.In Other News
Trump and some federal agencies have long theorized that the pandemic began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the Chinese deny.
“It can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, and half destroy the world," Trump told reporters at the White House.
His executive order targeted the elimination of what is called gain-of-function, which studies how viruses become more powerful*. The United States funded that sort of research at the Wuhan lab, in the city where the initial outbreak was reported.