WATCH: The View blames Trump's 'xenophobia' for discrediting Covid lab leak theory

Julia Johnson

March 01, 01:14 PM March 01, 01:14 PM

According to The View hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin, former President Donald Trump is responsible for the lack of credibility initially given to the theory of COVID-19 originating from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

"Trump unleashed this xenophobia," Hostin said. "He stopped allowing Chinese people to come to the country. He then started calling it the—."

WATCH: JON STEWART WAS STUNNED BY 'THE ANGER' AFTER SUGGESTING COVID-19 LAB ORIGIN

Goldberg cut her cohost off, telling her, "Don’t even say it."

"He kept on saying 'China, China' and doing this thing where I was even concerned, as someone who had lost family members, for [Hostin's husband] to even bring it up," Hostin added. "That is really sad because when you can’t trust the transparency of your government, where are you?"

Goldberg also told her cohosts, "he made it about Asian people," referring to Trump's handling of the pandemic.

She then referenced "Asian folks getting smacked and hit and people saying stuff to them about bringing the disease here."

"If you-know-who had not started it with that, had he not made it about that, had he said 'listen, this might have come out of a lab' and not gone on and described it in ways I’m not going to reiterate for you, it probably would have been listened to a lot differently," Goldberg explained.

It was revealed on Sunday that the U.S. Department of Energy concluded the COVID-19 virus most likely originated in a lab and was then leaked. The department oversees various labs and research centers. It reportedly made the judgment in "low confidence."

Comedian Jon Stewart, who floated the lab leak theory on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2021, reacted to the new report on a recent podcast episode.

According to him, "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."