A day before leaving the U.S., Lin expressed his displeasure on Twitter with President Donald Trump referring to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus” since it originated in Wuhan. The Players Tribune then published Lin’s first-person account last week that described how Trump’s words influenced various attacks against Asian-Americans. “I don’t want any ethnic group or people group to be attacked or to have to deal with the racism,” Lin said. “If there is something that is aiding that, that would compel me to speak out. At that moment in time, I felt like a lot of Asian-Americans were being attacked and are still being attacked.”