![Comedian Jon Stewart reflected on Tuesday about the intense backlash he faced after he suggested the coronavirus leaked from a lab in light of a new report by the Department of Energy confirming same. [Screenshot twitter The Problem With Jon Stewart]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-28-at-1.07.39-PM-e1677608242657.png "Comedian Jon Stewart reflected on Tuesday about the intense backlash he faced after he suggested the coronavirus leaked from a lab in light of a new report by the Department of Energy confirming same. [Screenshot twitter The Problem With Jon Stewart]")
Comedian Jon Stewart reflected on Tuesday about the intense backlash he faced after he suggested in 2021 that the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab in light of a new report by the Department of Energy confirming same.
The Department of Energy concluded in a recent classified intelligence report that pandemic likely originated from from a lab leak in Wuhan, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
During a June 2021 appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Stewart relentlessly mocked people who dismissed the possibility the virus originated in a lab.
“Oh my God! There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China,” Stewart said. “What do we do? You know who we could ask — the Wuhan Novel Respiratory Coronavirus Lab. The disease is the same name as the lab!”
A few months later, Stewart told The Hollywood Reporter he was a “little surprised” at the criticism he received over those comments. (RELATED: Psaki Casts Doubt On Report That COVID May Have Leaked From Lab)
Stewart again reflected on the incident during Tuesday’s episode of his show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.”
“Are you trying to get me canceled again?” Stewart joked when executive producer Brenda Adhikari mentioned the Department of Energy report.
“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,” Stewart said. “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.'”
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 part that I don’t like about it is the absolutes and the dismissive like, ‘Fuck you, I’m done with you. I will never forgive you, you have crossed an unforgivable line, you’ve expressed an opinion that is antithetical to mine, or not mine,'” Stewart added.