Vice President Kamala Harris took a swipe at former President Donald Trump for commending Chinese President Xi Jinping’s handling of COVID-19—reigniting a flurry of comments about the virus’ origins.
During the debate Tuesday night, Harris argued that as president, Trump was not focused on ensuring the U.S. would win “the competition for the 21st century” against China.
“Under Donald Trump’s presidency, he ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military,” she said. “Basically sold us out.”
She then attacked Trump’s dealings with Xi, putting him on blast for praising China’s initial handling of COVID.
“But what Donald Trump did, let’s talk about this. With COVID, is he actually thanked President Xi for what he did during COVID,” she said before referencing a January 2020 tweet in which Trump praised “their efforts and transparency.”
“It will all work out well,” Trump said in the aforementioned tweet. “In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
Harris then added, “We know that Xi was responsible for lacking and not giving us transparency about the origins of COVID.”
But Harris’ line of attack, trying to ding Trump for misleading, is having a likely unintended consequence: reigniting right-wing discourse about the origin of the virus.
“VP Harris sounds like she just admitted the Covid virus originated in a lab,” remarked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “That was one of the ‘conspiracy theories’ the Biden-Harris administration censored on the Internet.”
Another right-wing influencer reacted on X, writing: “Wait….who was behind COVID?????? Say that again, Kamala????”
“Wow. Did Kamala Harris just admit China created the cough cough time?” asked someone else.
Others put the narrative shifting around COVID’s origins on blast.
The Wuhan lab leak theory was initially dismissed by scientists as misinformation and a conspiracy theory.
While the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan market is still widely accepted, the lab leak theory has gained considerable credibility in the years since the pandemic began.
Multiple U.S. agencies still support a natural origin theory. However, both the Energy Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation have switched their stances to support a lab origin—having “low confidence” and “moderate confidence” in the theory respectively.
Now, Harris’ comments at the debate are giving COVID-origin skeptics vindication—and prompting calls for apologies.
“Did everyone miss the part where Kamala admitted COVID came from China?” questioned Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). “So why was she so bent out of shape when Trump called it the China Virus?”
“Did Kamala just blame China for covid?? You’d get banned from X for saying that in 2020-2021!” responded another X user. “Now you can say it in a Presidential debate and everyone nods! Where are the apologies!!???”
“Kamala essentially just said Covid was made in a lab, 3 years ago this would have got you banned in Twitter,” echoed someone else.
“Dude, you screamed ‘racist and conspiracy theorist’ at the time because he kept calling it the ‘China Virus,’” swiped another person. “Stop trying to rewrite history.”
Another conservative knocked Harris for her comment while referencing Mark Zuckerberg’s allegations that Biden administration officials pressured Meta to censor certain COVID-related content.
“Kamala Harris says China hid the origins of COVID from America,” the user said. “But her Administration censored Americans who dared to say the same thing.”
Quipped another: “Now who’s the conspiracy theorist.”
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