Rules. Who are they really for? Not the president’s director of the United States National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, whose characterizations of the pandemic have been flagrantly bullish. You’ll recall he’s the one who urged conservative activists in February, as market dread was setting in, to “think about buying the dip” to land cut-price deals, and assured investors in early March that the coronavirus was “contained” “relative to ordinary flus.”

“The virus is not going to sink the American economy,” he predicted in February. “What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle.” More recently, Kudlow has been happy-talking the economy by downplaying recession fears. The US now has 26 million unemployed, and Trump just signed another aid bill, this one to the tune of $484 billion.

But Kudlow is focused on making himself look sharp for Fox News host Laura Ingraham, even if it means flouting his own administration’s social distancing advice by forcing a salon to open. Kudlow wasn’t worried. He didn’t have a temperature. He felt fine! No biggie for a round of intimate head contact with a “friend” for a “special deal”, while everyone else is growing a quarantine man bun or showing off their roots.

“I’m also going to confess, I had a hair trim yesterday. It was kind of a special deal,” he said, sitting in front of a backdrop of the nation’s capital, to an approving Ingraham hoot. “She got her hairdresser to come in and open up her barbershop and the guy gave me a pretty good trim. I don’t have much to work with, but it looks much better because I want it to look good on the Laura Ingraham show. That was the key point and here I am. I had no temperature this morning coming into the White House, I tested negative last week, I feel fine.”

Watch:

"It was kind of a special deal": White House Coronavirus Task Force member Larry Kudlow says he got a haircut to look good on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/WKx0BgoR4d — Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) April 25, 2020

Seconds later he said “you’ve got to meet the guidelines.” You can see a slightly longer clip here.

Washington DC is currently under a shelter in place order. Non-essential businesses like salons are closed. What’s a little trim between friends?