Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) on Monday said that he is willing to take a chance on his survival as a senior citizen for the good of the country’s economy amid the coronavirus outbreak and added that he thinks “there are lots of grandparents out there in this country” who feel the same way.
“No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in,” Patrick, who turns 70 next week, said during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program on Monday night.
{mosads}”I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me — I have six grandchildren — that what we all care about and what we love more than anything are those children, and I want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed. And that’s what I see,” he said.
“We’re having an economic collapse. I’m also a small business man. I understand it,” he said. “And I talk to business people all the time, Tucker, and I’m so — my heart is lifted tonight by what I heard the president say because we can do more than one thing at a time.”
Patrick appeared to be referring to remarks President Trump made during a press briefing on the outbreak earlier on Monday. At the briefing, Trump said administration officials “will be using data to recommend new protocols to allow local economies to cautiously resume their activity at the appropriate time,” as a number of states have closed schools and nonessential businesses in recent weeks to curb the spread of the disease.
Though Trump acknowledged during the briefing that the outbreak in the U.S., which has reported more than 43,000 cases so far and more than 500 deaths, would worsen in the days ahead, he said the country would “soon be open for business.”
While discussing Trump’s remarks during his appearance on Fox News on Monday night, Patrick said he thinks Americans “should wait out his time, and if he says we need another week, I trust his judgement.”
“But we have to have a time certain,” he continued. “We cant say in three months, or six months, or twelve months. These businesses can’t wait that long.”
“So, my message is that, let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves but don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said at another point during his appearance. “Don’t do that.”
“You’re basically saying that this disease could take your life but that’s not the scariest thing to you. There’s something that would be worse than dying,” Carlson said.
“If I get sick, I’ll go and try to get better, but if I don’t, I don’t, and I’m not trying to think of any kind of morbid way, Tucker, I’m just saying that we’ve got a choice here and we’re going to be in a total collapse, recession, depression, collapse in our society if this goes on another several months, there won’t be any jobs to come back to for many people,” he said.
“So, I’m going to be smart, I think all of my fellow grandparents out there are going to be smart. We all wanna live, we wanna live with our grandchildren for as long as we can,” he added. “But the point is, our biggest gift we give to our country and our children and our grandchildren is the legacy of our country.”