WASHINGTON — White House spokesman John Kirby on Wednesday slammed what he called a “ludicrous” and “ridiculous” notion that Saudi Arabia’s government may have deliberately exposed President Biden to COVID-19.

Biden, 79, evaded the virus for more than two years, but started to develop symptoms last Wednesday, less than four days after he returned to the White House from a trip to Saudi Arabia to make peace with the country’s killer Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Has the US government ruled out the possibility that the Saudi government may have deliberately exposed the president to the coronavirus?” The Post asked Kirby at the daily White House press briefing.

“I don’t know where this idea is coming from. I don’t know what prompted you to ask it that way. But the idea that a foreign nation-state would deliberately try to infect the president of the United States with a virus is ludicrous, just absolutely ludicrous,” Kirby said.

“There’s nothing to it and it should be treated as the ridiculous idea that is,” Kirby added.

The White House previously sought to tamp down speculation about where Biden may have contracted the virus. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week, “I don’t think that that matters.”

The Saudi crown prince, known as MBS, hosted Biden for a two-day visit as Biden sought to repair relations after trying to sideline MBS for his role in the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, was dismembered by a Saudi hit team using a bone saw inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The US intelligence community assessed that the prince, who is Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, ordered the operation.

Biden had icy relations with the Saudi government during his first year in office after vowing as a presidential candidate to make Saudi Arabia “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s murder and to “make them in fact the pariah that they are.”

Biden sought to thaw relations with MBS after gasoline prices hit an all-time high of more than $5 per gallon in June, contributing to the worst inflation since 1981 and sending Biden’s approval rating as low as 33%.

The CDC says that the median incubation period for the predominant Omicron variant of COVID-19 is 3-4 days.

A possible Saudi connection was discussed on social media and even entertained informally by some US officials following Biden’s diagnosis — in part because Biden aides must be tested before interacting with the president, limiting his risk during domestic encounters.

First lady Jill Biden, who did not join her husband in the Middle East, remained negative for the virus and Biden had few public engagements in the days before he tested positive Thursday.

After returning from Saudi Arabia the night before, Biden on Sunday July 17 attended a Catholic church service. That Monday, he had no public events, and that Tuesday, Biden welcomed Ukraine’s first lady to the White House but otherwise had no public events.

The next day, Biden began to develop symptoms of COVID-19 after a day trip to Massachusetts, according to a memo from his physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

Biden, who was quadruple vaccinated, tested negative for the virus Tuesday evening after being treated with a five-day regimen of antiviral Paxlovid.