The hosts of “The View” agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to believe that COVID may have originated in a lab — but that people were afraid to say that because they didn’t want to be seen agreeing with former President Donald Trump.
During Wednesday’s broadcast of the ABC midday talk show, the hosts discussed recent reports indicating that despite adamant pushback from people like Dr. Anthony Fauci, some within the FBI and the Department of Energy found the theory plausible.
WATCH:
Sunny admits that even her family thought COVID came from a lab in China but called Trump "xenophobic" for barring travel from China and for saying "China."
She admits she didn't want to talk about the lab leak because of Trump. pic.twitter.com/2JkAcfPCe8— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 1, 2023
“He’s right. The politics got in the way of a lot of looking for the truth. They still are not saying definitively, and that’s a problem. They still don’t know for sure,” host Whoopi Goldberg began, claiming that Trump’s early adherence to the idea that the virus had come from a Chinese lab had fomented anti-Asian hatred and saying that people didn’t want to embrace the theory because it was associated with that hatred.
Sunny Hostin agreed, admitting that even members of her own family had believed the virus had likely originated in a lab — “That’s what the Chinese even thought,” Hostin added, noting that she had been to China and had friends who still lived there. But she went on to say that she had not really wanted to discuss the possibility of the lab-leak theory being correct because of its association with Trump.
Sara Haines then jumped in, noting that comedian Jon Stewart had hit the nail on the head when he said that tribalism in politics was making it impossible for people to have real conversations about topics like COVID.
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WATCH:
Surprisingly, Sunny called out Dr. Fauci for being wrong about the lab leak and downplaying it.
"He was pretty dismissive for a while. And he said this did not come from that. Then he changed in July of last year. He hedged slightly by saying he was going to keep an open mind." pic.twitter.com/26Sv8uTGRn— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 1, 2023
And Hostin, who had previously — and often — defended Fauci, turned on him over his role in the active suppression of the lab-leak theory.
After Goldberg and Joy Behar tried to cover for Fauci — claiming he had only said that he “didn’t know” the origins of the virus, Hostin continued: “He was pretty dismissive for a while. And he said this did not come from that. Then he changed in July of last year. He hedged slightly by saying he was going to keep an open mind.”