On Wednesday, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy unleashed a torrent of criticism over excessive lockdown measures and lambasted state officials over ever-moving goalposts when it comes to the strategy of facing the novel coronavirus.
“What the f*** is going on?” Portnoy started the video stream, which now has over 3 million views. “When did this become, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘flatten the curve’, to we have to find a cure or everyone is gonna die?”
“Like, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci, seems like a nice enough dude, I was always like, this guy has no agenda … [He] gets in front of the Senate, he’s like, we’re reopening the country too fast everyone’s dead. Where’d that come from? And the L.A. mayor, we’re not opening the city until we find a cure? What? Find a cure? Who says we’re gonna find a cure? We haven’t have a cure to cancer, it took AIDS 20 years or whatever, do we even have a cure? So, the economy is just shut down?
“All we ever heard, for forever, was, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘flatten the curve’, ‘make sure there’s hospital beds’. We’re there!” he continued. “Now all of a sudden, it’s like a 180. That’s like taking a cross-country flight, six hours. Five hours and a half go by, they get on the intercom and they’re like, ‘oh, just kidding, we have another ten hours’. You can’t do that! People have been mentally preparing, we’re doing what you ask. We’ve done exactly like you said, now you’re changing the rules.”
“And what about people who own businesses,” noted Portnoy. “You can’t say closed indefinitely. Imagine working for a year, five years, ten years, two decades, grinding your fingers to the bone to build your businesses — Barstool, thank God, will be alright — I’m talking about other businesses. People who have jobs and have worked their whole f***ing lives to put food on the table and create a happy living. They’re just gonna go out of business? They’re just gonna wake up whenever this thing ends, when the mayors say them they can go back to work? Work to what? Your company is gonna be out of business, the economy is gonna be in the s***er, there’s gonna be no jobs, how the f*** are you gonna pay for your family, put food on the table, all that s***? What are you doing? You gotta give these people a choice.”
“If you told me, because of corona, I lost Barstool, I had to get a nine-to-five and start f***ing over, I’d rather die of corona, seriously, or at least take my chances,” Portnoy said. “I’m not saying everyone would do that. I would. But if I’ve dedicated 20 years of my life, I don’t wanna start over. I’ll f***ing deal with corona. You can’t just make everybody stay inside and basically start over. It’s insane. Like, what the f*** do they think is gonna happen?”
“At some level, we’ve done what you asked us to do,” closed the Barstool founder. “If you’re that scared of corona, stay inside. … There’s risk. We’re Americans, you have to take risks. If people want to go out, they can go out; if they wanna stay in, they stay in.”
WATCH:
Emergency Press Conference – When Did Flattening The Curve Turn Into Finding The Cure pic.twitter.com/ZaSTxL6Tuc
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 14, 2020
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