A Republican U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania with ties to a racist former Trump official came under fire Tuesday for minimizing the more than 1000 deaths of children who died from COVID-19.
“Many of these children had pre-existing – I’m sorry, had underlying medical conditions,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler on the House floor, “making them more vulnerable to COVID-19 than the average child, meaning that many of these children died with COVID, not of COVID.”
“But again,” Reschenthaler wrongly snarked, “that’s real science, not political science.”
Congressman Reschenthaler for several years was the co-host of a radio program with Carl Higbie, a Trump administration appointee who was forced to resign over “anti-gay, anti-Muslim, racist and sexist remarks he had made on his radio program,” CNN reported in 2018.
On Tuesday his remarks about children who died from COVID-19 angered and upset many.
“Rep. Reschenthaler, the phrase you’re casting about for here, as you try to minimize the deaths of children with preexisting conditions from #COVID19, is not ‘real science,’ but ‘Nazi science.’ It’s called eugenics. You’re a eugenicist,” charged New York Times best-selling author Steve Silberman.
Lincoln Project senior advisor Jeff Timmer responded saying: “Republicans: Dead kids are no big deal. Get over it. Fight ‘tyranny’ and shit.”
“The fact that children with disabilities and underlying medical conditions are the ones dying of COVID isn’t a point of comfort — it’s a stain on a society that is failing to protect its most vulnerable members,” said Philadelphia Inquirer opinion writer Abraham Gutman.
Others: