You know the news by now: Over the weekend, former President Trump told a crowd of supporters that if he runs/wins in 2024 he will pardon insurrectionists charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. It’s egregious enough on its own, but a report surfaced yesterday revealing that Trump’s been talking about this for a while: in the waning days of his presidency, just after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol trying to do a coup, Trump was obsessing over the idea of potentially offering a blanket pardon to his supporters who attacked the Capitol.

These numbers came out a week or ten days ago. I had seen them before. But seeing them mentioned again today just made me marvel. In December 2021 unvaccinated people in the United States were 97 times more likely to die of COVID than people who are vaccinated and boosted. 97 times more likely. Just think about that number.

The metric is ‘only’ 14 times more likely compared to people who are vaccinated but not boosted. That is a remarkable level of protective benefit by any standard. But I find the degree of benefit from the booster even more eye-popping. It’s not a marginal difference. And to think tens of millions of Americans simply refuse to take this simple, free step.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss news around the Supreme Court nomination, including the Republican reaction, and the push for legislative election reform.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.