CNBC’s Rick Santelli Apologizes After Suggesting Everyone Should Be Infected With Coronavirus To Help The Economy

What a gem.

I feel like infecting everyone with a potentially deadly virus would hurt the economy more… considering if mankind became extinct, it would deplete the economy entirely.

… yes, I’m aware I’m totally exaggerating. However, this is much of the essence from the assumption made by those who condemned what Santelli stated.

Should we all just get ran over buses too, since one day we’re all going to die anyways?

I’m just being facetious since the illegitimacy of Santelli’s claims are so outlandish.

According to Fox News, this is what Rick Santelli stated:

Santelli, who was an early Tea Party leader, made the comment Thursday on CNBC’s “The Exchange” when he was asked about a market sell-off amid widespread fear over the coronavirus.

“People are getting nervous, listen, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a doctor. All I know is, Think of how the world would be if you tried to quarantine everybody over the generic-type flu.

Now I’m not saying this is the generic-type flu, but maybe we’d just be better off if we just gave [the coronavirus] to everybody and then in a month it would be over, because the mortality rate of this probably wouldn’t be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture,” Santelli said, “But the difference is we’re wreaking havoc on domestic and global economies.”

This is absolutely horrifying.

Rick Santelli on @CNBC says we should consider giving coronavirus to everybody to just get it over with.

That way it won’t wreak so much havoc on the economy.

This is your brain on capitalism.pic.twitter.com/Uv5UYyKtxy

— Read Wobblies and Zapatistas (@JoshuaPotash) March 5, 2020

As you can see, his commentary is easily interpreted as, ‘let’s just give it to everyone, it’ll kill everyone off however it needs to in a shorter amount of time, so economic problems won’t be prolonged.’

… or at least something along those lines, right?

Santelli did apologize on Friday for these comments –

CNBC editor Rick Santelli appologized Friday for suggesting that Americans should consider giving the coronavirus to “everyone” to get it over with and help the economy.

Santelli recalled people who purposely exposed family members to illnesses such as measles and chickenpox to “expedite the process” when he was young.

“It was just a stupid thing to say,” he said. “It’s not appropriate in this instance and we are resilient, both in the United States and in the globe. That resilience will get us through. The idea of something so absurd, I apologize and I apologize to everybody on the segment and all my peers at CNBC.”