Guest Host Talks Some Sense into 'The View' Ladies Upset About Trump's 'Chinese' Virus Term
Even amid a national crisis, “The View” can’t see straight.
With ringmaster Whoopi Goldberg participating by remote hookup, thanks to concern about the coronavirus, the co-hosts took on the pandemic on Wednesday, using the top of the show to address the vital question of whether President Donald Trump is stoking racial tensions by using the words “Chinese virus” to discuss the disease that’s upended American daily life.
But it took guest Dan Abrams, ABC’s chief legal analyst, to set the ladies straight: Americans faced with a real crisis, he said, won’t have time or patience for liberal quibbles.
The discussion started with Goldberg, naturally, attacking Trump for his nomenclature.
“You-know-who can’t even figure out what is going on or what to call the pandemic,” she said. “Watch the clip.”
“The View” then played the clip, which showed that Trump knew exactly what to call the pandemic at a news conference: He identified it by its place of origin, or “Chinese virus.”
https://youtu.be/5u6w4YYvrxM?t=214
“China was putting out information, which was false, that our military gave this to them. That was false,” Trump said.
“Rather than having an argument, I said, ‘I have to call it where it came from,’ it did come from China. So I think it’s a very accurate term.”
The discussion that followed was the blend of ignorance of anti-Trump animus that’s been a regular staple on “The View” for the past four years.
Goldberg claimed there was no evidence that China has tried to blame the virus on the United States, when in fact, evidence abounds.
For example, here’s a Twitter post from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao doing exactly that on March 12.
2/2 CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation! pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 12, 2020
Co-host Sunny Hostin, meanwhile, said the phrasing made her “uncomfortable.”
Maybe it makes her uncomfortable, but truth sometimes has a way of doing that to people who refuse to see it.
It was Abrams’ words that carried the most weight. First, he set the record straight on Chinese accusations that there was an American role in starting the virus. Then he got to the issue of terminology.
“This is one of these issues that I think in particular, if many on the left get too focused on, Trump’s going to win on this,” Abrams said.
“The bottom line is the vast majority of Americans are going to say, ‘Tell me what to do on coronavirus, I care about this virus. It matters. I’m glad finally the Trump administration is recognizing how serious it is.’
“But if people start focusing on what is he calling [it], ‘he’s calling it the Chinese virus versus the coronavirus.’ Look, do I think he should be calling it the Chinese virus? No. But I think it’s a losing argument for the left to make because I think the vast majority of Americans are going to say, ‘Who cares?'”
Quasi-conservative Meghan McCain, as vocal a Trump critic as television has to offer, was OK with the phrasing.
“I agree with you,” she told Abrams. “I think that if the left wants to focus on PC this virus, it is a great way to get Trump re-elected.
“I don’t have a problem with people calling it whatever they want. It’s a deadly virus that did originate in Wuhan. I don’t have a problem with it.
“And I think that China — had they acted right away and we had more access to information, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to the place that it is.”
And that’s part of what makes this different from the kind of crisis that liberals can spin with their usual word games. As countless closed schools, businesses and churches attest, this is a clear and present danger to the United States, and its point of origin is pretty well understood as not being the United States military.
This isn’t about “drag queen” story hours that disgust sane people, but thrill liberals.
This isn’t about ludicrous “climate change” solutions, fantastic projections of what the world’s temperature will be a century down the road, or any of the other liberal “causes” that have consumed so much American print and airtime during the Trump presidency thanks to the left’s domination of the mainstream media, the nation’s benighted college campuses and the even more benighted glitterati of Hollywood.
This is about a global pandemic, and the very real possibility that it will be a matter of life and death for many, many Americans.
In that context, quibbling about the president’s word choices is the last thing Americans will want to spend time on.
It might not be a “win” for Trump, but it’s going to be a loss for the left.
The liberal ladies on “The View” might not be able to see it, but liberals trying to trip up Trump over trivialities are really just showing the world who they really are.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
