After a new report from a U.S. government department indicated that the coronavirus likely originated from a lab leak, comedian Jon Stewart recalled receiving harsh criticism in 2021 for floating the possibility.
"The backlash was swift, immediate, and quite loud," he said Monday on his podcast The Problem With Jon Stewart.
"The part that I don't like about it is the absolutes and the dismissive, like, 'f*** you, I'm done with you. I will never forgive you. You have crossed the unforgivable line. You've expressed an opinion that is antithetical to mine or not mine,'" the comedian said.
It was revealed Sunday that the Department of Energy, which oversees several U.S. labs and research centers, made a judgment of "low confidence" that the virus originated in a lab before spreading.
CORONAVIRUS MOST LIKELY ORIGINATED FROM A LAB LEAK, US DEPARTMENT CONCLUDES
Today @JonStewart talks to some of our staff about the news that the COVID-19 virus may, in fact, have leaked from a lab in China and what it reveals about the problem with the media narrative machine. Full episode drops Wednesday on @ApplePodcasts pic.twitter.com/tsaLUYzIRl
— The Problem With Jon Stewart (@TheProblem) February 27, 2023
The comedian added that he was stunned by "the anger."
In 2021, Stewart appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he suggested that it was likely that the coronavirus originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
"‘Oh, my God, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do?’ ‘Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.’ The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think?" he said at the time.
He further joked, "‘Oh, my God, there’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think happened?'"
"Like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean?’ Or it’s the f***ing chocolate factory!" Stewart said.
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On his podcast, Stewart said, "I wasn't waiting on the Department of Energy to weigh in on this."
Recalling the backlash, he explained that "the larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that. My bigger problem with that was I thought it was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how I felt, and the two things that came out of it were: I'm racist against Asian people, and how dare I align myself with the alt-right."