Remember when social media platforms forbade anyone from even suggesting that the COVID virus may have leaked from a lab in China that was studying coronaviruses?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

But that was way back then. Now, much of the COVID narrative is falling apart — new studies have suggested that masks don’t work, lockdowns were ineffectual, the vaccine is now mostly ineffective, and the U.S. Energy Department says that it’s likely the Wuhan lab was the source of the virus.

One person who’s been following the whole saga is Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time.”

“I feel like the people who were the dissenters are looking pretty good. I was one of them,” Maher said during a panel discussion on his show Friday night. “I remember getting a lot of s*** from a lot of places.”

A guest on the show, comedian and Rumble host Russell Brand, jumped in, saying dissent “is a great duty around all topics” as he criticized those who are “too desperate to shut down a conversation.” That, he said, actually results in the “ironic” rejection of science and inquiry.

“The problem I feel that we had is that only experimentation was taking place that was beneficial to certain interests,” Brand said. “Only arguments were being advanced that were beneficial to certain interests. Only regulations were being imposed that were beneficial to certain interests.”

“The Wuhan lab leak theory being just one example — [top COVID official Dr. Anthony] Fauci himself was seriously considering that this was a likely origin for the virus,” the actor said.

“How could it not be a possibility?” Maher said incredulously. “It’s a lab in Wuhan where the virus started that studied the virus and was doing gain of function research on the virus. How could it not be?!”

Another guest on the show, liberal MSNBC analyst John Heilemann toed the party line, blaming former President Donald Trump for “politicizing” the issue and putting the lab-leak theory in doubt.

“If you go back to that time, why do people seize on the notion that they’ll reject the lab-leak theory? Because like everything else in COVID, Donald Trump politicized it from day one,” he said.

“His thing in that first two weeks was ‘kung flu.’ And it was not just that it started in a lab, but then that the Chinese had released it on the world, that it was a bioweapon. This wasn’t a leak. It was just not like there was an accident in the lab. The notion that was put forward by the administration in some case was there was political interest to make China the villain,” Heilemann said.

But Maher pushed back. “So everybody else has to take his bait like that and double down on stupid?” he said.

Brand piled on, saying it wasn’t just Trump who politicized the virus.

“It seems that it’s not solely the responsibility of Donald Trump that this issue has become politicized. When we take the issue of natural immunity, the efficacy of masks, it’s difficult not to posit that perhaps increasingly a centralized authority becomes subject to inquiry that has never before face to because of the advancement of technology, because of our media ability to communicate, they are doubling down on authoritarianism,” Brand said.

Maher’s criticism follows that of Jon Stewart, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who once hosted “The Daily Show.” He was roundly ripped by fellow liberals when he vehemently (and in a quite funny way) declared in June 2021 that the COVID virus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China.

He felt vindicated when the U.S. Energy Department said this week the virus likely emerged from the lab.

“The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that,” he said.

“My bigger problem with that was, I thought it was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how I felt, and the two things that came out of it were, I’m racist against Asian people, and how dare I align myself with the alt-right,” Stewart said.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

As American men continue to struggle, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff wants to use his platform to denounce so-called toxic masculinity.

Emhoff this past week told MSNBC that there’s too much “toxicity” in masculinity these days, an issue he’s spent “a lot” of time thinking about.

“There’s too much of toxicity — masculine toxicity out there, and we’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine,” the 58-year-old said.

“You’ve got this trope out there where you have to be tough, and angry, and lash out to be strong,” Emhoff continued. “I think it is just the opposite. Strength is how you show your love for people. Strength is how you are for people and how you have their back and how you stick up for other people and pushing up and out against bullies. And that’s what I believe it is.”

“Every time I can speak against this toxicity — we are seeing it with our younger people, we’re seeing it in our discourse and politics, in the media you are seeing it as it relates to so many of the issues we are pushing back on, so I think it’s a problem and I am going to continue to use this platform every time I get to speak out against this toxic masculinity that is out there.”

Trish Regan, host of “The Trish Regan Show,” ripped Emhoff for contributing to this far-Left initiative of redefining traditional masculinity in a recent podcast where Daily Wire host Michael Knowles made a guest appearance.

“I’d say you’ve confused it,” Regan slammed, reacting to the second gentleman speaking about masculinity. “I’d say you’ve done a really good job at confusing it.”

“It’s not that hard, it’s just that you seem really kind of hell-bent on making sure that young kids don’t understand the difference between a man and a woman,” she continued. “You know, Apple has that ‘pregnant man’ emoji and everyone sudden wants to go by ‘they.'”

“A masculine man is someone who is a responsible person,” Regan clarified for the second gentleman. “A responsible person, a kind person who looks out for women and recognizes the vulnerability and the specialness, if you will, of women. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

WATCH:

Fox News’ Dana Perino was in disbelief that Emhoff went after masculinity to the extent he did. “Of all the issues, in all the world, this is the issue he’s choosing,” she mocked.

The media, politicians, and corporations have certainly contributed to the fight against traditional masculinity. Back in 2019, razor company Gillette kicked off 2019 by declaring war on “toxic masculinity.”

The company released a commercial offering a new twist on its “best a man can get” slogan that instantly went viral.

In the ad, Gillette asked if toxic masculinity is “the best a man can get?” The commercial features video and audio clips presenting stereotypical bad behavior by men, including sexual harassment, bullying, and physical abuse. “Boys will be boys!” a line of men standing, arms crossed, behind grills obstinately declare in one dismissive, unified voice.

The #MeToo movement, the commercial suggests, was the moment when everything “finally changed.” Amid news clips of various #MeToo allegations, the narrator tells us, “There will be no going back because we — we believe in the best in men. To say the right thing, to act the right way. Some already are — in ways big and small. But some is not enough because the boys watching today will become the men of tomorrow.”

“‘Boys will be boys?’ Isn’t it time we stopped excusing bad behavior? Rethink and take action by joining us,” Gillette said in its tweet releasing the commercial.

Last year, Daily Wire co-founder and co-CEO Jeremy Boreing launched Jeremy’s Razors, in response to Harry’s Razors pulling their ads from The Daily Wire after a Twitter user with two followers complained about widely-held opinions on masculinity, gender identity, and sex being expressed from a Daily Wire host.

In the same vein, Boreing launched Jeremy’s Chocolate this past week after Hershey’s chose the first day of Women’s History Month to introduce a biological man who claims to be a woman as one of the faces of its commemorative “SHE” bar, The Daily Wire reported.

Related: Nuts Or Nutless? The Daily Wire Launches ‘Jeremy’s Chocolate’ After Hershey’s Trans Farce Insults Customers