S04E01 – COVID lab leak and Iranian Nuclear Weapons

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we’re joined by a special guest – Josh Cragun is back after a nearly two-year hiatus. (And he has hair!) We cover two topics in this episode. First, we start with the COVID-19 lab leak theory. We read an editorial from the New York Post editorial claiming that it is now definitive that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China. Tom and Josh are now convinced that it came from a lab. Ryan is not convinced, even though he agrees that there is circumstantial evidence supporting such a claim. We then turn to Iran and their continued enrichment of nuclear material in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. We discuss what has led up to the current situation and talk about whether we think they’re going to get a nuclear weapon and, more disturbingly, whether they would use such a weapon. With both stories, we talk about media bias. Tom and Josh argued that the COVID-19 lab leak theory was depicted as a conspiracy theory and that was unfair. Ryan argues that there has been a spate of recent stories blaming Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons on Biden in conservative media outlets, none of which mentioned that it was Trump who pulled the US out of an agreement and re-asserted sanctions. These biases lead Josh to say we can’t trust any media, Tom to say we need to examine both sides, and Ryan to continue to say that media can largely be trusted to report basic news, but with a fair dose of skepticism.