‘That Sounds Way More Racist!’ Daily Show Host Hasan Minhaj Mocks Idea Lab Leak More Racist Than Wet Market Theory

The Daily Show‘s latest guest host, Hasan Minhaj, scoffed at those who argue that the lab leak theory of Covid-19’s emergence is more offensive than the idea that it originated at a Chinese wet market on Monday, deeming the latter “way more racist” during a monologue.

“Now, here’s the thing I’m wondering, OK? Why did this whole lab leak versus wet market thing become the Yankees versus Red Sox of the culture war in the first place?” asked Minhaj.

“And to me, I think it’s because when some people started saying it came from a lab, other people were like, ‘Hey, you can’t say the Chinese are trying to poison everybody on planet Earth. That’s racist!’ You should say ‘Covid came from a wet market where Chinese people eat weird animals.’ But that sounds way more racist!” he continued, adding that he came to this conclusion as “a kid who had to eat weird ethnic food in the lunchroom.”

When Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) first suggested that the virus may have originated inside of a lab rather than in an animal sold at a wet market, he was smeared by some in the media as a conspiracy theorist. Anne Applebaum, a staff writer for The Atlantic, compared Cotton to Soviet propagandists while the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie called him “one of the most irresponsible and dangerous people in federal office.”

A year later after more evidence for the lab leak theory had accumulated, Times science reporter Apoorva Mandavilli attributed the interest in it to bigotry tweeting, “Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not today.”

Debate over the origins of Covid-19 has been reignited by a Wall Street Journal report on the Department of Energy’s classified, “low confidence” assessment that the virus likely was introduced to human populations by a lab leak.

Watch the full clip above.

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