Comedian and political commentator Bill Maher said the coronavirus should be named “Chinese virus” because it was accurate. The term “Chinese virus” has become a hot button issue these past weeks as many said it was racist and could lead to a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. President Trump referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” but he has since backtracked after pressure mounted. But Maher on his show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” yesterday double-downed on the term and blamed China for the outbreak.

“Scientists who are generally liberal have been naming diseases after the places they came from for a very long time,” Maher said. “Zika is from the Zika forest, Ebola from the Ebola river … MERS stands for Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome and it’s plastered all over airports and no one blogs about it. So why should China get a pass?”

“This isn’t about vilifying a culture, this is about facts. This is about life and death,” Maher said. “We’re barely four months into this pandemic and the wet markets in China, the ones where exotic animals are sold and consumed are already starting to reopen … it’s not racist to say eating bats is bat s**t crazy.”

After, Bill went on to say that China should be blamed but people should not blame Chinese-Americans.

“So when someone says ‘What if people hear ‘Chinese Virus’ and blame China,’ the answer is, we should blame China,” Maher said. “Not Chinese Americans but we can’t stop telling the truth because racists get the wrong idea. There are always going to be idiots out there who want to indulge in their prejudices...

“This has nothing to do with Asian Americans, it has everything to do with China. We can’t afford the luxury anymore of nonjudginess towards a country that has habits that kill millions of people everywhere because this isn’t the first time. SARS came from China, and the Bird flu and the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu. Viruses come from China like shortstops come from the Dominican Republic.”

Bill Maher started trending on Twitter for using the term “Chinese virus” and naturally people on the left despised what he said while people on the right loved what he said.

Check out the rest of this rant below.

Here is a rebuttal by comedian Joe Wong.

“So f**k you Bill Maher,” Wong said. “… Yes, no one should eat bats instead they should shove them up your boring, talentless, and attention-seeking a**.”