Republican Sen. John Cornyn blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak, criticizing the country’s “culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.”
“China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people, and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu,” the Texas senator said.
Sen. John Cornyn: “China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats & snakes & dogs & things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu.” pic.twitter.com/N4TIlGFqAL
— The Hill (@thehill) March 18, 2020
Cornyn’s Democratic critics were quick to attack him for his comments on Twitter.
“Can we go back to when being racist in public wasn’t cool?” said Democratic attorney Bakari Sellers on Twitter.
Can we go back to when being racist in public wasn’t cool? https://t.co/H1wLhKPsW6
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) March 18, 2020
“Disparaging an entire ethnic group and culture like this is bigotry, plain and simple,” California Rep. Judy Chu said. “Blaming Chinese people en masse for the spread of this disease is the exact same bigoted line that was used to justify the Chinese Exclusion Act over a century ago.”
President Trump has drawn criticism over the last few weeks for mentioning that the coronavirus came from China.
The president bucked that criticism again Wednesday by referring to the illness as a “Chinese virus” during a press conference.
“It’s not racist,” Trump told a reporter Wednesday when confronted about racism claims regarding the coronavirus. “It comes from China. I want to be accurate.”
