In an effort to mitigate the sting of defeat, Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera has suggested that a forthcoming vaccine be named after Donald Trump. Such a gesture, he said on Friday, could work to cheer up our septuagenarian baby president as he continues to rely on dangerous conspiracy theories to reject political reality.
“I had an idea: With the world so divided, and everyone telling him he’s got to give up and ‘Time to leave’ and ‘Time to transition,’ why not name the vaccine after Trump?” Rivera told the hosts of Fox & Friends. “It would be a nice gesture to him.”
The fantasy went even further. Rivera imagined a future—one that presumably survived the president’s disastrous handling of the pandemic—featuring Americans saying to one another: “‘Have you got your Trump yet?’ ‘I got my Trump, I’m fine.'”
“I wished we could honor him in that way.”
The utter sincerity with which Rivera broached this idea should not be lost here; he genuinely appears to believe that Trump is not only deserving of such scientific recognition but that it could work as some kind of consolation prize for losing the presidential election. Meanwhile, more than 250,000 people in the United States have been killed by the virus—and the country’s third surge has only just begun.
**turns on Fox & Friends**
"Why not name the vaccine the Trump, make it — have you gotten your Trump yet? It would be a nice gesture to him." pic.twitter.com/K64Mw8J6Vk
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 20, 2020
