When I got to college, I met a beautiful young woman from the Pacific Northwest with droopy, side-swooped bangs and an effortlessly chic, late-aughts hipster wardrobe. She told me that she was an Urban Outfitters model, which impressed and intimidated me. Only later, did I find out that she was not, in fact, an Urban Outfitters model. So, why did she say that? Probably because people? They’re always saying things. For example, Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview this weekend that he’s ensconced in the “protective glow” of immunity after coming down with covid-19, even though that is not a thing.
“It looks like I’m immune for, I don’t know, maybe a long time, maybe a short time,” he told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, NBC News reports. “It could be a lifetime. Nobody really knows, but I’m immune. So, the president is in very good shape to fight the battles.”
But even if we accept that people are always saying things, Trump’s big ol’ claim begs the question: Why? Why, in a world where people are always saying things, would he say these things right here? Things that aren’t backed up by what’s scientifically known about the novel coronavirus, which the Associated Press says might leave us with “some immunity” post-infection though how much and for how long remains unknown? Probably because he’s trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls, per CNN. Probably because he wants to get back out on the campaign trail to make the most of his final weeks before the Nov. 3 election in battleground states, where he’s just announced more rallies in the coming week, ABC News reports—even if he’s got to fake a doctor’s note about “no longer [being] considered a transmission risk to others” to do so. And probably also because people are always saying things. They’re famously always saying things, the people.