It seems the well of horrifying things said behind the scenes in the Trump administration is far from running dry, with the latest revelations taking the banal form of an email. A former Department of Health and Human Services science advisor reportedly pushed the controversial “herd immunity” approach to the coronavirus pandemic (you know, the do-nothing non-strategy Sweden tried that turned out to be a terrible idea).
As Seth Meyers observed in Thursday night’s A Closer Look segment, the wording — which included the truly chilling phrase “we want them infected” — paints an even grimmer background to the White House’s lethal inaction.
“‘We want them infected,'” repeated Meyers incredulously. “That is real supervillain shit, right there. I mean, Bane might say that but even he wouldn’t put it down in an email.”
“Just think about how monstrous and sociopathic that is,” Meyers went on. “They wanted people to get sick. I know in the Trump era, every news story lasts five minutes and our brains have all been turned to mush by the constant crush of insanity. But this story should never be forgotten. Anyone who enabled this should be held accountable for it. You can’t just let something like this go.”