USA Today:
"Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, drew a backlash on social media and from Asian American advocates on Wednesday for
claiming China was "to blame" for the spread of the
coronavirus because of a "
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, and now the coronavirus, so I think they have a fundamental problem, the Texas Republican
said to reporters, saying he did not object to a geographic name for the virus.
Asked about Asian Americans' concerns about racism, Cornyn said, "I disagree. We're not talking about Asians. We're talking about China, where these viruses emanate from and created this pandemic."
Cornyn met a swift backlash on Twitter.
"Can we go back to when being racist in public wasn’t cool?"
said Democratic attorney and politician Bakari Sellers on Twitter.
