(Washington, DC) Today, Representative Malinowski spoke on the House Floor in support of H.Res. 908, Condemning All Forms of Anti-Asian Sentiment as Related to COVID-19. You can find a video of his remarks here and a transcript below.

“Madam Speaker, after 9/11 President Bush never once called terrorism a Muslim virus, or an Arab virus, or a Saudi virus. He made clear that the enemy was not the place where the terrorists came from or the people who live there, but terrorism itself. He did that because it was right and because he knew that equating the evil of al-Qaeda with an entire faith, or nationality, or country was exactly what our enemies wanted.

So today when prominent people in our country, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats or anybody in the media, encourage Americans to call COVID the “China Virus” — language that seems to blame this pandemic on a country and a people — they are not only doing something wrong, something that has already encouraged violence and discrimination against Asian Americans, they are playing right into the hands of a Chinese Communist Party that wants Asian Americans to feel unwanted and unsafe in America.

Now if you want to blame this on the Chinese government, sign me up. If you want to blame them or anybody else for lying to the American people, sign me up. But if you’re going to give this virus a nationality, you are doing something wrong. And if you don’t see the difference between those two things, then you don’t understand what’s going on in this country in this moment of division, this moment of danger that we face.

So Madam Speaker, I am proud to support this resolution condemning anti-Asian rhetoric in any forum. I ask my colleagues to vote for it. And I encourage them to live up to it.

Thank you and I yield back.”