Trump economic adviser pushing for May 1 reopening: 'Why don’t we just put everybody in a space outfit?'

One of President Donald Trump's most trusted economic advisers has been pushing to reopen the economy as soon as next week, and he's got an outlandish idea for how that might happen.

Conservative economist Stephen Moore told the New York Times that he's been advising the president to call for an end to statewide lockdowns, arguing that economic recovery could come by the end of the summer.

"For the good of the country, we have to really get things opened," he said.

"I said, 'Mr. President, if you can get the economy open by May 1 and right from that date' — and by the way, that, of course, means that some states will open and others won’t — 'that you could possibly see this recovery by the end of the summer, and we can really get through this,'” Moore added.

Moore understands that some states are more prepared than others to ease social distancing restrictions, but he's confident that distancing won't be necessary to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

"We can use really good public safety measures, social distancing the work force, disinfectants everywhere, masks," Moore said. "I was thinking this morning, and this is just kind of a thought experiment because I was thinking about this — why don’t we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that? No. Seriously."

He conceded that those outfits aren't readily available and possibly impractical, but he said workers must be put back on the job one way or another.

"I know we don’t have space outfits," Moore said, laughing. "I mean, just thinking out loud, and maybe this is a crazy idea, but instead of just locking down the economy, putting everybody in a kind of — you’re right. You have to make 200 million of these, but it wouldn’t have cost $3 trillion to do that, and you can have for months people just walking around in these kind of — I mean, I was looking online, and there are all these kinds of suits that they’re building now that you’re not exposed and you’re breath — kind of ventilator."