On February 21, CBS News Face the Nation featured an extended interview with Matthew Pottinger. Pottinger talked about the COVID-19 pandemic from his perspective as the Deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump Administration.
Of all the interviews I have watched, listened to and read during the past year about the pandemic, this is by far the most informative. Kudos to the host, Margaret Brennan, for a superb job drilling down on how the pandemic began, China’s role in turning a local outbreak into a global disaster, and what went wrong here in the US.
Matthew Pottinger spent seven years (1998-2005) in China as a journalist for Reuters and then the Wall Street Journal. From 2005-2010, he served as a Marine Corps intelligence officer with one combat tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. In 2017, he became the Asia Director on the National Security Council staff in the White House, and in September 2019 became the Deputy National Security Advisor. He resigned from this position on the evening of January 6, 2021 following the assault on the Capitol.
Face the Nation, February 21, 2021 (my apologies for the 30-second commercial at the beginning)