'The View' co-host Sara Haines furthers excuse that Trump is reason media shut down lab-leak hypothesis

Co-host of "The View" Sara Haines furthered the excuse Wednesday that the media shut down the hypothesis the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab because former President Donald Trump's administration was "the messenger." 

The liberal host suggested that because the "theory" came out under Trump, the media had reason to push back on it, citing what she referred to as "racist terms and dog whistles" used by the former president against China in the early months of the pandemic.

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Other outlets have also appeared to blame the Trump administration, instead of the media, for causing the lab-leak hypothesis to not appear credible. Earlier this week, the New York Times' Maggie Haberman and the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler made similar claims.

The discussion began with co-host Whoopi Goldberg playing a clip of Dr. Anthony Fauci expressing the need to continue the investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Goldberg asked Haines if one of the reasons there were so many theories about the virus's origins was because nobody waited to let the science explain.

"I do. I think that’s partially it. I think, also, there were people that had raised concerns early on, a couple years before, saying that the safety precautions in this particular lab weren’t always followed," Haines responded. "When that theory came out that it could have come from a lab, it came out under the former administration, and I think the messenger matters."

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"I think during that time when that theory started to be told, it was buried in an administration and a former president who often troped in racist terms and dog whistles," Haines continued, seemingly referring to use of names like "China virus," and "kung flu" to describe the virus. "And so it buried the message that could have been actually reasonable, but no one was going to hear it because it came from under Trump’s administration, and the media at that time was used to what he doled out, and they were going to push back on that." 

She went on to admit that more investigation into the origin of the virus was needed, but questioned the World Health Organization's ability to conduct it, citing its "partnerships" with China, and suggesting the communist country could have "undue influence on them.

Co-host Sunny Hostin also weighed in.

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"Science is an evolutionary type of thing, and so you have to find out everything, right?" Hostin said, after incorrectly stating Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was pushing the theory that China had released the virus as a bioweapon.