CNBC commentator Rick Santelli stated something inane about the novel coronavirus in early March as it was beginning its spread across the United States.
” Maybe we ‘d be simply much better off if we provided it to everybody, and after that in a month it would be over,” Santelli said during a section for business network. “Due to the fact that the death rate of this most likely isn’t going to be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture, however the difference is we’re ruining worldwide and domestic economies.”
Santelli’s idea proved unpersuasive with the public and his bosses at CNBC. After a short backlash, he rapidly apologized
And yet, a variation on Santelli’s style quickly became the main Republican line on how to deal with the pandemic, from statehouses to Fox News to the Trump administration. By overreacting to the general public health emergency situation, the country was holding back the economy.
” WE CAN NOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE ISSUE ITSELF,” Trump tweeted on March23
” As a senior, are you going to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America enjoys for your children and grandchildren?” mused Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in a Fox News appearance later that night. “If that is the exchange, I’m all in … we can’t lose our whole country, we’re having a financial collapse.”
By May, Fox host Pete Hegseth was encouraging viewers to show some “guts” and head out and deliberately agreement the illness as Trump insisted “we have to get our country open, and we need to get it open quickly.”
Astoundingly, this careless narrative took hold not just among Trump’s fellow Republicans but also with many Democratic mayors and guvs excited to improve the circulation of money to bars, restaurants, real estate developers and other regional busines