“Squawk Box” co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin and CNBC personality Rick Santelli got into a heated verbal argument over COVID-19 restrictions and masks during a debate over how restaurants are being devastated by the pandemic.
Santelli argued Friday on CNBC that it didn’t make sense to shut down restaurants when parking lots at big-box retail stores in his neighborhood were packed.
“You can’t tell me that shutting down, which is the easiest answer, is the only answer,” said Santelli, who won fame and attention in 2009 with a rant from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange suggesting that a tea party should be started during that recession.
Sorkin, who is also a New York Times financial columnist and has previously had on-air disputes with colleagues on CNBC over the appropriate precautions to take for COVID-19, fired back at Santelli.
“Rick, just as a public-health and public-service announcement for the audience, the difference between a big box retailer and a restaurant, or frankly even a church, are so different it’s unbelievable,” Sorkin said.
Santelli started yelling, “I disagree, I disagree. I disagree. You can have your thoughts, and I can have mine.”
Sorkin countered with: “You’re required to wear a mask. It’s science. I’m sorry, it’s science.”
Santelli replied that it’s not science. “Five hundred people in a mall aren’t any safer than 150 people in a restaurant that holds 600. I don’t believe it. Sorry, I don’t believe it. And I live in an area where there are a lot of restaurants that have fought back and they don’t have any problems and they’re open,” Santelli said.
“Well you don’t have to believe it, but you’re doing a disservice to the viewer,” Sorkin replied.
Santelli countered with, “You’re doing a disservice to the viewer. You are! You are!”
“I’m sorry, I would like to keep our viewers as healthy as humanly possible,” Sorkin said.
The debate began over government data showing the slowest U.S. jobs growth in six months. The report raised investors' expectations for a new fiscal relief bill to help revive the coronavirus-hit economy.
The Labor Department's closely watched report showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 245,000 jobs in November, below economists' expectations of 469,000 jobs and the smallest gain since the labor recovery started in May.
"The bad news of the weakening jobs picture is potentially good news for investors because it means that the stimulus bill is much more likely to take place in a fairly short time frame," Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in North Carolina, told Reuters.
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