Donald Trump tests positive for coronavirus, and the political fallout from his initial response to the virus is just beginning. In the second half of the show, we turn to the prickly subject of whether Trump's initial response was racist.
00:04:59.120But at the same time, it's not going to kill half the population or all of the population or whatever some people or some wild people were suggesting.
00:05:11.720But I think a good place to start would be in the political realm and something – I mean, this 2020 election – I mean, I thought 2016 was pretty wild.
00:05:27.180But FBI Director Comey releasing a report on Hillary or so on, these seem like little minor passing scandals du jour.
00:05:43.320And it seems like in this one, just every three days, we get something that everyone freaks out about.
00:05:50.380And there was, of course, the really civil and high-minded presidential debate that we witnessed.
00:06:00.660And just 24 hours later, I guess, or 48 hours later, Trump came down with coronavirus.
00:06:10.900I have to say, it did seem to be only a matter of time before these kinds of things were occurring.
00:06:17.980Apparently, the virus was spread at this Amy Comey Barrett announcement celebration where there were a number of people in the Rose Garden.
00:06:31.280They were – the Republicans were writing, hi, we're going to get our conservative justice put in.
00:06:36.120And very few people were wearing masks.
00:06:39.160And it was just – yeah, I mean, looking back at it, it looks almost inevitable.
00:06:43.000But the president getting this virus, I think, is interesting on a couple of different levels.
00:06:52.240I mean, there's no way that it can't affect the campaign.
00:06:55.020And it also brings coronavirus right back to the fore.
00:06:58.780And I think people were kind of forgetting about it.
00:07:36.100And, you know, it raises the prospect of the president dying right in the middle of a campaign.
00:07:46.600I mean, again, I don't think that's going to happen.
00:07:48.840But it does certainly raise that prospect.
00:07:51.420So this opens up a number of different doors.
00:07:55.180I could roll on this, but do you have anything to say on Trump and just how this will affect things kind of either politically?
00:08:05.440Well, I suppose you were saying about how we've been here before.
00:08:11.780I mean, in 1963, in Britain or across Europe, I think, perhaps, there was a flu pandemic.
00:08:18.660And it was in late 63, like November, October, about 663.
00:08:23.320I think my great grandmother, I think, died of pneumonia as part of age 69, probably as part of this pandemic because she died in November 1963.
00:08:32.180And the people were just used to this.
00:08:37.220There would be these pandemics every so often, a flu or whatever, and old people in those days, 69 was old, would die.
00:08:45.080And we were slightly more used to death.
00:08:48.640People that were elderly in those days, people like her who had been born in 1893, have been brought up in a society where child mortality was 10 percent.
00:08:57.240And where far more people would die younger, would die, certainly men would die in their 50s.
00:09:56.640We have such strong individualistic values and there's no belief in, no public belief in things like an afterlife, particularly in Europe, in an afterlife or whatever.
00:10:06.900And so there's no kind of idea, well, you know, God will look after us.
00:10:09.740God will look after his own or anything like that.