With the Department of Energy and the FBI now admitting that evidence points to the virology lab in Wuhan, China as the origin for COVID-19, the cast of ABC’s The View was finally ready to start accepting that idea as the best obtainable version of the truth. But to combat the fact many conservatives and Republicans had been focused on the lab for years, the cast found fault Wednesday in former President Trump; blaming him for liberal hostility to the lab leak theory.
The show opened with a clip of comedian Jon Stewart blasting the left for calling him racist and alt-right because he made the obvious connection between the virus and the lab, but Whoopi Goldberg still wouldn’t let it be. “No, he's right that politics got in the way of a lot of looking for the truth. But they still are not saying definitively and that's a problem. They still don't know for sure,” she tried to dismiss the theory.
She then bashed Stewart for spreading the lab theory out of ignorance of what it was doing to Asian Americans and suggested, without evidence, that Trump attributed the origin of the virus to all Asian people:
I -- you know, who knows where it came from. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't. But I know when the last guy before Biden said anything about this he made it about Asian people. And I'm sure Jon Stewart didn't realize that's what was happening because I'm sure he didn't know what was going on all over the country with Asian folks getting smacked and hit and people saying stuff to them about bringing the disease here. I mean, this was -- this was what was happening.
“And if you-know-who had not started it with that, had he not made it about that, had he said, ‘Listen, this might have come out of a lab’ and not gone on and described it in ways I'm not going to reiterate for you, it probably would have been listened to a lot differently,” she whined, refusing to give evidence.
Co-host Sunny Hostin came out of the lab leak theory closet by admitting that physicians in her family think COVID came from a lab. “[W]hen [my husband’s] parents died from COVID, as a physician and his sister's a physician, that's all they thought about, where did this come from? How did this come? And we had this discussion about the Wuhan lab being right there,” she said.
She also noted that their family friends who lived in China told them “the rumor at the time was it came from the lab. That's what the Chinese even thought.”
But Hostin blamed Trump for her aversion to saying it came from a lab. They even clutched their pearls because she almost said “China virus” like Trump:
HOSTIN: And I will say is that because, as you mentioned, Whoopi, Trump unleashed this xenophobia, he stopped allowing Chinese people to come to the country. He then started calling it the –
GOLDBERG: Don't even say it. Don’t even say it.
HOSTIN: He called it something. He kept saying China, China, and doing this thing where I was even concerned as someone who had lost family members for Manny to even bring it up. And that is really sad. Because when you can't trust the transparency of your government, where are you?
Co-host Sara Haines chimed in with some both-sides-ism and said there was “ignorance” abound when people talked and argued about COVID’s origin.
And now suddenly, everyone needed to bury the hatchet and listen to those who were opposed to strangling COVID protocols. “Both of those were screaming ignorance, which was also a problem now when we look back -- having open conversations about the vaccinations, the school shutdowns, everyone had a different idea. There wasn’t one right way to do it,” she implored.
Meanwhile, as they were having this conversation about being open and honest about the facts, The View was making their entire studio audience and staff wear masks.
These comments from The View were discussed on the NewsBusters Podcast!
The View’s denial of COVID’s origin was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Dawn and Ancestry. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
March 1, 2023
11:07:03 a.m. Eastern(…)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: No, he's right that politics got in the way of a lot of looking for the truth. But they still are not saying definitively and that's a problem. They still don't know for sure.
I -- you know, who knows where it came from. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't. But I know when the last guy before Biden said anything about this he made it about Asian people. And I'm sure Jon Stewart didn't realize that's what was happening because I'm sure he didn't know what was going on all over the country with Asian folks getting smacked and hit and people saying stuff to them about bringing the disease here. I mean, this was -- this was what was happening.
And if you-know-who had not started it with that, had he not made it about that, had he said, “Listen, this might have come out of a lab” and not gone on and described it in ways I'm not going to reiterate for you, it probably would have been listened to a lot differently.
(…)
11:14:48 a.m. Eastern
SUNNY HOSTIN: I was just saying that, you know, when Manny's parents died from COVID, as a physician and his sister's a physician, that's all they thought about, where did this come from? How did this come? And we had this discussion about the Wuhan lab being right there. We both have been to China. We’ve been to Shenzhen. We've been to Hong Kong. And have friends that live there. And the rumor at the time was it came from the lab. That's what the Chinese even thought.
And I will say is that because, as you mentioned, Whoopi, Trump unleashed this xenophobia, he stopped allowing Chinese people to come to the country. He then started calling it the –
GOLDBERG: Don't even say it. Don’t even say it.
HOSTIN: He called it something. He kept saying China, China and doing this thing where I was even concerned as someone who had lost family members for Manny to even bring it up. And that is really sad. Because when you can't trust the transparency of your government, where are you?
SARA HAINES: Jon Stewart’s touching on something in that quote that was in the intro. He spoke about how we're having a problem with conversations, even when they're somewhat possible, falling into absolutes or political allegiances. And that's the case for a lot of conversations.
So, when you even look back – because of the politicization of this from people who were saying -- using racist dog whistles and a thousand other things were completely ignorant, it was just as ignorant for people to come back at Jon Stewart and say, “Well, then you are a racist and that you must be associating with the alt-right.” Both of those were screaming ignorance, which was also a problem now when we look back -- having open conversations about the vaccinations, the school shut downs, everyone had a different idea. There wasn’t one right way to do it.
GOLDBERG: And there still isn’t.
(…)
