Newly appointed Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo made racist and xenophobic remarks about Chinese people and spurred conspiracy theories regarding the coronavirus in several tweets, all of which have since been deleted, according to CNN. On March 12, Caputo tweeted that “millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters,” and claimed that the goal of Democrats was to defeat President Trump in the next election with “100s of thousands of American deaths.” He also shared a tweet by conservative actor Nick Searcy and added, “Democrats are pulling for the virus to kill a lot of people.” In another tweet, he responded to a user, “Don’t you have a bat to eat?” Caputo also referred to the coronavirus as the #ChineseVirus 20 times in a row, according to CNN.
