WASHINGTON, D.C. — Toward the end of 2020, Qongressman Matt Gaetz divulged that he had previously tested positive for COVID-19.
Gaetz was one of a handful of prominent Republican elected officials who ended up getting COVID after downplaying it. Many might recall the image of Gaetz in a gas mask on the House floor, mocking early adopters of the masking practice so many Americans grew accustomed to over the proceeding weeks and months. In a new interview with Epstein Magazine, Gaetz divulges that his symptoms were manageable, but he found himself “wishing” that he’d gotten “COVID-17 instead.”
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“I don’t know; COVID wasn’t really all that bad,” Gaetz told the interviewer. “I mean, one thing I like about infectious diseases — I keep getting older, but they retain the year appended to their name, know what I mean? So if anything, I just found myself really wishing I’d gotten a case of COVID-17 instead. That would have been alright, alright, alright.”
While he had COVID-19, Gaetz says he remained quarantined as per the CDC guidelines.
“But if I had gotten COVID-17? I’d have taken that hot little thing across state lines for sure,” Gaetz joked. “Probably to a MAGA rally or something.”
Gaetz said that his “good friend Roy Moore” told him that he had also been diagnosed with COVID.
“But that lucky son of a bitch got COVID-14! I wish I had known you could get younger strains of the virus,” Gaetz said, misunderstanding that -14 would indicate Moore’s strain originated in 2014, making it older than COVID-19. “Oh well, maybe there’s next year.”
Gaetz has reportedly been considering an early exit from Congress to take a gig on Newsmax TV, and definitely not because of any criminal investigations or anything like that.
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Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because Twitter is a cesspool.
