Trump Ally Says 'Why Don’t We Just Put Everybody in a Space Outfit' During the Coronavirus
The same day President Donald Trump suggested that health officials should look into injecting disinfectant to treat the novel coronavirus, one of his allies and occasional advisers had another idea to combat the pandemic — one he mentioned knowing just how wild it sounded.
“Why don’t we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that?” economist and conservative writer Stephen Moore said in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday.
“We’d have to make the space outfits, right?” Times reporter Lisa Lerer responded.
Moore’s answer:
“I know we don’t have space outfits — I mean, just thinking out loud, and maybe this is a crazy idea, but instead of just locking down the economy, putting everybody in a kind of — you’re right,” said Moore, 60.
“You have to make 200 million of these, but it wouldn’t have cost $3 trillion to do that,” he continued, seemingly referring to the size of the stimulus laws already passed and being considered by Congress. “And you can have for months people just walking around in these kind of — I mean, I was looking online, and there are all these kinds of suits that they’re building now that you’re not exposed and you’re breath — kind of ventilator.”
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Moore does not work in the White House but has been advising the president on economic issues surrounding the coronavirus.
Trump unsuccessfully tried to nominate him to the board of the Federal Reserve last year, but he withdrew his name under fire for sexist comments he made in the past about women, though he defended his statements as attempts at humor.
His “space outfit” idea sparked jokes on social media.
“Trump economic adviser: What if we put everyone in a ‘space outfit’? Trump: What if we inject people with Lysol?” one Twitter user wrote. “We’ve got some real geniuses in charge.”
“A space outfit? They can’t even make enough surgical masks!!!” television producer Melissa Jo Peltier tweeted.
Earlier this month, Moore said protestors of stay-at-home orders were like civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
“I think there’s a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded,” Moore told The Washington Post.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” he said.
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