Jon Stewart Reacts to Being Cancelled for Promoting COVID Lab Leak Theory In Response to New Report

If you were one of the people who believed or even just entertained the theory that the COVID pandemic originated from a Chinese lab, you were probably subjected to intense backlash, social media censorship and fact checking.

Celebrities were no exception to this, as was the case with Jon Stewart.

On his podcast, Stewart recounted the “surprising” response he got when he called out those who dismissed the theory.

“Oh my God! There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China,” the comedian said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “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!”

In light of the U.S. Energy Department’s conclusion that the pandemic most likely originated from a lab leak, Stewart discussed the topic on his podcast.

“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.’”