House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said when she went out to promote San Francisco's Chinatown in late February, she did so to "end the discrimination" against Asian Americans after the outbreak of the coronavirus.

"What we were trying to do is end the discrimination, the stigma that was going out against the Asian American community," Pelosi said on Fox News Sunday.

The California Democrat claimed the city's Chinatown has been a "model for containing the virus."

President Trump and his allies attacked Pelosi after local media reports of her encouraging public gatherings surfaced earlier this month.

“It’s exciting to be here, especially at this time, to be able to be unified with our community,” Pelosi said on Feb. 24. “We want to be vigilant about what is out there in other places. We want to be careful about how we deal with it, but we do want to say to people ‘Come to Chinatown, here we are — we're, again, careful, safe — and come join us.'”

Trump claimed this week that Pelosi removed video of those comments from her Twitter account, but the speaker's spokesman denied it was ever posted.

"I thought it was necessary to offset some of the things the president and others were saying," Pelosi said Sunday.

During the early days of the pandemic in the United States, Trump was criticized for referring to the COVID-19 virus as "the Chinese virus" and denied reports a White House staffer used the term " Kung Flu" to describe it.

"It's not racist," Trump said during a press conference last month. "It comes from China. I want to be accurate."

Trump was asked if the term "Chinese virus" "puts Asian Americans at risk."

"No, not at all. Not at all," Trump said, adding that Asian Americans "probably would agree with it 100%. It comes from China. There’s nothing not to agree with."

Pelosi said Trump's comments have made Asian Americans in the U.S. a "target of violence."

"I was saying you should not discriminate against Asian Americans as some in our administration were doing," Pelosi said, adding, "That's what we're saying: Look to them for answers, don't look to them to place blame."

