Howard Stern, like the rest of us, is not thrilled to be entering year three of the pandemic. Unlike the rest of us, however, he thinks he can fix it. In a recent episode of his SiriusXM show, the radio personality said he “might have to run” for president in order to rid the country of COVID-19 once and for all.

 

“Believe me, this here is turning into a third-world country because of the f—ing morons we have living here,” Stern said, referring to anti-vaxxers who have allowed new cases to keep cropping up. “We could be past a lot of this COVID business.”

 

Stern is a registered Libertarian, but in a rare display of level-headedness, he put reason above personal choice, calling people’s refusal to get vaccinated “insanity.”

 

“You were all about freedom, until the morons got ahold of the place,” Robin Quivers, Stern’s longtime cohost, said.

 

“Now I’m not into freedom,” he joked back. “I don’t feel good about what’s going on in my country. I might have to run just to clean this f—ing mess up.”

 

“I could clean it up in two seconds,” the talk show host continued. “Just the way Biden got us out of Afghanistan — that quick I’m going to clean things up. Boom. Right away.” Stern is a proponent of mandatory vaccination for all Americans, and believes the unvaccinated should be denied medical care if and when they fall ill.

 

Stern has floated the idea of a White House run before — primarily in order to prevent his old pal Donald Trump from winning reelection. Earlier this month, he called it his “civic duty,” claiming that “he’d beat [Trump’s] ass.”

 

Stern’s dipped his toes into politics before. Back in 1994 he ran for governor of New York, but withdrew from the election when the state’s Supreme Court required him to disclose his personal finances as a candidate.