Jon Stewart is getting attacked by his normal lefty admirers after absolutely throwing his assist behind the idea that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese language lab.
The previous “Every day Present” host began going viral after a blistering look on “The Late Present” Monday during which he scoffed at anybody who doubted that the pandemic originated in Wuhan couldn’t be tied to the foremost coronavirus-studying lab in the identical metropolis.
“The illness is identical title because the lab!” he repeatedly stated, saying, “That’s f–ed up.”
His assist of the speculation — lengthy rubbished by the left after being touted by former President Trump and his administration — appeared to irk host Stephen Colbert, who flailed round for comebacks.
“And the way lengthy have you ever labored for Sen. Ron Johnson?” Colbert requested, evaluating Stewart, 58, to the Republican Senator who final week stated that proof of a lab leak “has been hiding in plain sight for months.”
Amid a barrage of shock from leftist commentators on social media, Stewart’s look even drew an op-ed in The Washington Put up.
Opinion author Paul Waldman overtly admitted that a lot of his beef was that Stewart “at all times delighted extra in skewering Republicans,” suggesting that his new route meant he was not an “immensely necessary determine.”
“This [lab-leak] concept has develop into related to conservatives attempting to show that former President Donald Trump was proper about every thing,” he stated, ignoring the truth that President Biden has ordered a serious investigation into it.
Stewart’s prolonged tirade got here when he was requested about scientific measures tied to the pandemic as he appeared on Colbert’s first “Late Present” again in entrance of a reside viewers.
“Science has, in some ways, helped ease the struggling of this pandemic … which was greater than seemingly brought on by science,” he stated to nervous laughter and applause.
Colbert made it clear he doesn’t assist the lab-leak concept, asking his visitor, “Do you imply maybe there’s an opportunity that this was created in a lab? If there’s proof I’d love to listen to it.”
“An opportunity? Oh my god!” Stewart replied with clear incredulity. “There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what will we do? Oh, who we might ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.
“The illness is identical title because the lab! That’s just a bit too bizarre, don’t you assume?” he stated.
He then pretended to be a Wuhan scientist claiming that the pandemic began when “a pangolin kissed a turtle” or “a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey, after which it sneezed into my chili and now all of us have coronavirus.”
“There’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness close to Hershey, Pennsylvania — what do you assume occurred?” he stated of one other make-believe state of affairs.
“Oh, I don’t know, possibly a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean … or it’s the f—ing chocolate manufacturing facility. Perhaps that’s it!” he stated.
At one level, Stewart walked straight as much as the digicam for a soliloquy to ensure his argument was clear.
“‘I’ve been alone so lengthy, and after I realized that the laboratory was having the identical title — first title and final title — of the evil that had been plaguing us, I assumed to myself, ‘That’s f–ed up,’” he stated.
Regardless of conceding that even White Home illness professional Dr. Anthony Fauci is open to the lab-leak concept — one which President Biden has ordered an investigation of — Colbert continued to push again.
“It could possibly be attainable that they’ve the lab … as a result of in Wuhan there are lots of coronavirus ailments due to the bat inhabitants there,” he advised.
“It’s the one place yow will discover bats,” Stewart replied sarcastically, mentioning that “Austin, Texas has hundreds of them that fly out of a cave each evening at nightfall” however “there doesn’t appear to be an Austin coronavirus.”
“The one coronavirus we now have is in Wuhan the place they’ve a lab referred to as – what’s the lab referred to as once more, Stephen?” he requested his host.
“The Wuhan novel coronavirus lab,” Colbert responded.
One on-line commentator famous how Colbert appeared “hilariously uncomfortable” on the concept supported by “certainly one of his heroes.”
“Six months in the past he’d need to condemn Stewart as a right-wing xenophobic conspiracy theorist,” journalist Michael Tracey wrote.
Lawyer and TV pundit Clay Travis additionally famous that “till a month in the past Fb would have blocked this from being distributed.”
“Within the area of a yr left wingers and their allies in huge tech have moved from ridiculing and silencing anybody who advised covid might have come from a Chinese language lab to ridiculing anybody who doesn’t consider covid got here from a Chinese language lab. It’s head spinning,” he wrote.
Even Donald Trump Jr. famous the irony of Stewart’s assist of the speculation, which he referred to as “at all times probably the most believable argument.”
“Think about the individuals laughing with Jon Stewart should you stated this about 3 weeks in the past?!? They’d tar and feather you,” he tweeted.
