Trump adviser suggests reopening economy by putting 'everybody in a space outfit'

One of President Trump's economic advisers has an admittedly "crazy" idea for how to reopen the country amid the coronavirus pandemic: space outfits.

Stephen Moore, a member of Trump's economic task force, spoke to The New York Times this week about restarting the U.S. economy, saying he's been advising the president about how "we have to really get things opened" as soon as May 1st. But how are states to send people back to work in a safe way that doesn't endanger public health? Moore offered a bit of an ... out of the box ... suggestion.

"I was thinking this morning, and this is just kind of a thought experiment because I was thinking about this — why don't we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that?" Moore asked. "No. Seriously."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

The Times noted to Miller that "well, we'd have to make the space outfits," a fact he acknowledged while continuing to spitball.

"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," Moore said. "You have to make 200 million of these, but it wouldn't have cost $3 trillion to do that. ... 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."

The Times quickly moved on without nearly as many follow-up questions as expected, with Moore proceeding to claim the U.S. may not be able to "afford to wait" for more testing as experts have called for. Moore did, however, note multiple times in the interview that "I'm not a health expert" and at one point acknowledged while discussing one aspect of the pandemic, "Maybe I've got this wrong."