Image Credit: screenshot/The Problem With Jon Stewart 
Jon Stewart looked back on when he received massive backlash from the left for suggesting on Stephen Colbert’s show in 2021 that the COVID lab leak theory was likely.
On Tuesday’s episode of his show “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” executive producer Brenda Adhikari brought up the recent Department of Energy report admitting the COVID lab leak theory was plausible, prompting Stewart to respond.
“Are you trying to get me canceled again?” Stewart joked.
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 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.’”
Stewart went on to lambast the intolerant absolutism pervading U.S. political discourse.
“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 said.
Stewart received immediate backlash from the left after mocking people for dismissing the possibility that COVID could have originated at a biolab in China.
“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!”
Even Jon Stewart knew the lab leak was an obvious conclusion. pic.twitter.com/Y9vfMNwpeT
— Jiminy Cricket (@jim1ny_cricket) February 26, 2023
Notably, Colbert attacked the DOE after its report leaked over the weekend, telling the agency to “stay in your lane.”